The Family Clock
by Jan. McNeville
Summary: Ever think of the Weasleys' clock? A wizarding watchmaker makes friends with our favorite twins in an answer to the Great Mary Sue Problem. Rating is upped one, just to be safe.
1. Default Chapter

A/N: The standard I-don't-own-this disclaimer applies. Enjoy.

The Family Clock

I was never very good at magic. Not at all. In Hogwarts I scraped by with mediocre grades in subjects like Transfiguration and Charms, decent ones in Potions and Herbology, and occasionally pretty good ones in History of Magic and Care of Magical Creatures. My family wasn't exactly what you'd call pureblooded, since Muggle-borns had been married in for about six generations when I came along, but we had an old name and a fairly comfortable Gringotts vault, as well as a very good reputation, upon which the business depended. Any witch or wizard in Britain and most goblins knew, if you wanted a clock, you went to Jas. W. Tickes and Sons, in either their elegant but small Diagon Alley premises, or in the larger Hogsmeade showplace.

The name was really rather inaccurate. James Worthing Tickes the original had been dead since shortly after the war with the American colonies, and when I joined the family business, old Grandfather Myron Tickes was the only male presence in the place. As the second child in the family, my big brother had been expected to apprentice at Diagon Alley, but he was presently in training for his third season with the English National Quidditch team. My baby half-brothers weren't even ready for solid food yet, let alone Hogwarts and the apprenticeship, so when I overheard Dad and Uncle Gard discussing how bad Granddad's eyesight was getting, I loyally volunteered to come in and help out a bit.

Actually, I wasn't doing it so much out of loyalty. I was bored stiff at home, changing the twins' nappies and practicing with my tools. I wanted to take a stab at real work, and I'd always liked Granddad. Besides, the Hogsmeade showplace was a little too dull for me. It was always filled with matronly ladies of an afternoon, searching for something for newlyweds or a clock with larger numbers for an elderly, nearsighted relative. There were also quite a few people who came in just to look, and that was where Uncle Gard did his best work. He was a born salesman, showing customers just how a family clock was a good investment in mothers' security or why a clock set into the stomach of a nude statue was in the poorest taste. Dad was in charge of the books and roughly half of the small assembly processes, and my stepmother, when she was not up to the elbows in baby wasteproduct, did drawings for new designs. It was busy, but in a very pedantic way; more looking and hem-hawing than actually building clocks.

Diagon Alley was bustling and wild, and the shop there was more for repairs and specialty items –just what I was most fascinated by. I didn't give a flying one if some customer wanted a clock with a second hand they could adjust. The customer who came in, wanting a clock like no human, let alone wizard, had ever seen before, now that was what suited my creativity. I also wanted to meet people other than the average Sunday shopper looking for a watch that didn't stop if you hit it against a wall. Granddad's stories of who came into the shop asking for what had been the very finest memories of my childhood, nearly as wonderful as the times he sat me on his knee and let me repair a spring. Dad had been mourning my mother when I was that little, and Uncle Gard was still in his teens. My brother had been away at Hogwarts. So really, it was an easy choice.

It was also an incredibly foolish one, in some ways.

Granddad might have been nearsighted, but he knew how an apprentice should be managed: run their legs off and blister their thumbs to spit. One day I was sent out on no less than twelve errands, made to repair six pocket watches, one alarm clock, and a desk chronometer shipped in from Italy. I also spent two hours a night keeping Granddad's books. At least I slept well afterward.

The only people who seemed to sympathize during the first months of my apprenticeship were the shopkeepers across the street, neophytes themselves, but with an incredible sense of humor. They had had their shop only a year when I joined the family business, and my first day in the shop they chose to send a rubber chicken that did a comic dance whenever anyone said a dirty word. Anyone who's worked in a clock shop, around tiny parts that can snap at the least little nudge or fly away from you, as well as pointy things, knows the true quantitive value of a good swearword, and the dancing chicken nearly drove me wild. Granddad, that barmy old goat, thought it was a good lesson for me and insisted that I keep the chicken in a prominent place of honor above the shop fireplace. Within my second month of work I was cured of most unladylike language –though a pricked thumb did still occasionally give the chicken its' exercise.

I liked the Weasley twins. They remembered me as a diligent Ravenclaw who spent a very happy portion of the Yule Ball fixing the Headmaster's fancy watch and no less than three Quidditch games with clocksmiths' tools in my hands, repairing a Snitch for Madam Hooch's generous twenty points apiece. I remembered them as the class pranksters who had hired me to change the locks on Umbridge's chamber door, just before they set off fireworks in the hall during her shower. No one had really recovered from that bit of near-nudity, and the Headmaster had very politely told me after his return to mind Professor Snape's doorknob being left-handed, I suppose in the event I got a bad potions grade.

Even though they didn't graduate with me, Fred and George considered me a friend, nearly as close as a fellow Gryffindor, and sometimes after a long evening of bookkeeping they invited me over to their apartment above the shop for late-night tea and hours of dirty jokes. I occasionally had to dart across to Weasleys' for a tablespoon of edible machine oil for a baby's wristwatch (a ridiculous invention, really,) and they occasionally came over for help with a clock that automatically reset itself, a reversing doorknob, or some other such invention that required intricate gearwork.

In time, I started to cook up ideas for them. They promoted the Cat-Chasing Clockwork Mouse as 'a Weasley's Wizard Wheezes exclusive by Jessie Tickes.' Grandfather, to put it mildly, was not pleased, though it took him a full week to figure out who Jessie was. My first name is Jamesina, since there must always be a James Tickes somewhere in the family, and after my brother, they suspected the shop might one day fall to me. Dad and Uncle Gard called me Jamie, and my grandfather had always called me Jims. When you have a horrible first name, sometimes you find novel ways of defusing it. The girl with the multicolored hair whose watch kept stopping at half-past one simply refuses to acknowledge hers, and Fred and George's littlest brother's friend patiently pronounces and re-pronounces hers. I still can't remember it most of the time, though. I'm not very good with names.

One nasty midwinter's day, Granddad sent me out with an errand list. I was to get machine oil in two very specific grades, strained wormwood cordial from the apothecary, which he insists is best for certain kinds of particularly magic clocks, a roast for supper, some cucumbers if they had them, and the latest Martin Miggs comic. Granddad was getting on in years, but he still liked his comic books. The supply shop was out of 10-D oil, so I had to duck out to the Muggle place Granddad sometimes sent me to if we were desperate. While there, I bought a new number four jeweler's screwdriver, Phillips head. It was on sale and Granddad's was getting dull. At the apothecary's, I ran into Professor Snape, who was surprisingly civil when I asked him how classes were getting on. He made a comment to the effect that I wasn't such a dunderhead as he had previously considered me when I pointed out to the apothecary that the wormwood was too cloudy, and that gave me a nice feeling. When I explained to him what we used it for, however, he got a sort of distracted look on his face and asked if I had ever tried an infusion of distilled mulberry and asphodel for the same purpose. I hadn't, and after he mumbled something vague, I noticed I was running rather late.

I wear ten watches. I'm a clocksmith. Is that so _very_ odd? When the Professor noticed the five bands on each wrist, he actually broke out in laughter, so I left the apothecary's shop in a little huff. The only roasts the butcher had were red round or pork, but he managed to give me a decent price on what looked like some very tasty beef. The grocer didn't have any cucumbers, not even for ready money. Something about the season. (Drat it all, why are we wizards, then, if we can't have cucumbers whenever we damn well like?) I got zucchini instead and a very tall witch from America who was waiting in line with me gave directions on how to fry it. That made me feel better. Granddad loved fried foods best.

When I arrived home at the shop with my basket, curiously enough, there was a little crowd outside. George Weasley stood on our step, cheerfully making Lifelike Moving Balloon Animals for anyone who could guess his outrageous riddles. The fact that he was advertising on my front step didn't surprise me, so much as the fact that George wasn't with his brother, and Weasleys' was closed. The minute he saw me, George rattled off a particularly dirty joke that, luckily, went directly over the heads of his most youthful listeners, and handed the last balloon animal to a little girl before catching me by the sleeve and pulling me into my own shop like a miscreant.

Granddad had suddenly fallen ill. Fred had Apparated with him to St. Mungo's, and George had closed shop to wait for me. We locked the shop door and immediately Apparated out –that is, George did and I held onto him. I've never been all that good at magic, and I was a little too worried at the time to risk winding up half in London, half at Cobham Hill. My entire family, down to my tiny twin brothers, was there, listening intently to a healer who had just seen my grandfather.

"It's not the worst kind of heart attack, but he'll be off his feet for at the least another month, and then he'll have to take it pretty easy. You can see him now, but don't let him worry about business and no more than three people at a time. One more like that could really be bad for him."

Dad, Uncle Gard and I were the first in. Granddad was very inquisitively eying the hospital's bedside clock, but he stopped when he saw me and motioned my father and uncle closer. I heard mumbling and a gasp from Dad, but Uncle Gard patted his shoulder and the Granddad motioned for me to come around to the bed's other side.

"Jims, you're going to have to run the Diagon Alley shop until they let me out. It's a busy season, with Valentine's Day coming up, and I can't spare your father or Gardner at the showplace. Besides, you know the place best. Can you manage it?"

"I'll try my best, Grandfather."

"Good girl." Beneath his white moustache, Granddad smiled and patted my hand. "And don't go letting those wild Weasley boys play tricks on my elderly customers. One heart attack in a season is quite enough."

After some words with my family and a very elegant set of twin spit bubbles from Robby and Davy, I apparated home. Fred and George didn't let me do it myself, so I simply sighed and hung on to both their hands. Once at the shop, I sighed at the shopping basket and took out the roast and the zucchini.

"You aren't going to make dinner?" Fred asked.

"Why not?"

"But…you're distraught."

"George Weasley, do I really look that distraught?" The identical sets of eyebrows rose, as they always did when I told them apart perfectly. "The Healer said Granddad's going to be okay, and I'm expecting that Longbottom woman in the morning with a mantel clock. I'm not facing her _or_ her hat on an empty gut."

"Well…you really shouldn't be alone."

"Want to stay with us?"

"I have my own room upstairs, you are aware of that?"

"Well, can we at least cook you dinner?"

"Fred, I've tasted your cooking."

"She's right," George observed, smiling in his most charming way at me. "_You_ can cook dinner, and we'll do the washing-up."

"But why…"

"Bachelor cooking is universally horrible," Fred explained.

"Bachelorette cooking, however,"

"Particularly _cute_ bachelorette cooking,"

"Is quite tasty. I'll scrub and rinse,"

"And I'll dry the plates and things."

They were standing on either side of me, grinning identically. I tried to resist, but those redheads can be impossibly charming sometimes. I laughed and started slicing up the zucchini.

It turned out to be six months Granddad spent in St. Mungo's. No sooner was he out of the woods from the heart attack, but his liver went into decline. (Hospital food, indeed!) At the end of his long convalescence, my stepmother decided she would rather have him get properly well at the house outside Hogsmeade, and for once, my feisty granddad did not object. Mending seven-foot grandfather clocks' weight-driven gears might not have been all that restive, but reading to sleepy almost-two-year-olds could be.

In all that time, the Weasley twins had never failed to spend evenings and most mornings at my house, me cooking and they washing up, Fred scrubbing and George drying in turns. After it became clear Granddad neither intended nor wanted to come back to Diagon Alley, I fixed up the upstairs a bit. Dad, Uncle Gard, and the twins' younger brother and sister, as well as their friends, helped me move Grandfather's things to the new wing of our Hogsmeade house, and then the redecorating began. The littlest Weasley and sole girl, Ginny, as well as her friend Hermione, matched colors and furniture styles with me, while the brothers and Ron's friend Harry cowered downstairs, eating brownies and shuddering at all the noise we made. (_Men!_)

"Won't you be wanting a double bed?" Ginny asked, looking at the trundle one I had moved from my old room to what had been Grandfather's.

"Why?"

"Well, this one is rather small," Hermione pointed out.

"And if you have a guy over, you'll want room to move about."

_"Ginny!"_

"What? It's true."

"Tell me you don't know from experience," Hermione raised an eyebrow at the earthy little soul.

"Hey, I read. I spend nearly as much time in the library as you do."

"Albeit in completely different sections, I'd imagine." As much as Ginny's bluntness caught me off-guard, it was refreshing, and knowing her brothers, she came by it quite honestly. "I suppose I would like a bigger bed…though no bohemian love nests, okay? If your brothers caught me sleeping in anything less than the Franciscan nunnery, I'd never hear the end of the temptress jokes."

"You can trust us," Ginny reassured calmly, before almost idly pointing her wand and transforming the squalid little mattress-and-springs combination into a massive mahogany four-poster. "Speaking of, which one _do_ you fancy?"

"Which what?"

"You'll have to excuse Ginny. Her mind's been in the gutter since Madam Pince's last shipment of bodice-rippers." Hermione gave her younger friend the eyebrow of chastisement Fred and George had practically immortalized in song. "She means which of her twin brothers are you seeing."

"Oh! Them? Fred an' George?" I must have looked horribly flustered. "Oh, no, I…I don't…they and I…we're jus' friends."

"Drat it all." Ginny frowned jokingly. "I'd like to be an aunt eventually, and at the rate Percy's going with Penelope Clearwater, the Creevey brothers will have nephews before I do."

"Well, don't look here, mate."

It stood to reason, however. Local gossip had pinned me to one or another of the twins since even before Grandfather's heart attack, and the fact that I seemed to be the only soul outside of their family who could tell them apart with ease made the rumors seem even more exciting.

(It's really quite simple. Fred's watch is a chronometer and George's has a stop. Just look for the extra knob.)

The idea that I might actually consider taking up with one had never seriously occurred to me. Oh, certainly, they were both very handsome young men, they treated me like a goddess who could cook, and occasionally I had fallen asleep on a couch between the two of them. That was very nice, though I invariably woke up with my hair done in some absurd style, each half of my head a different way.

But there was always the inherent problem of two-ness that made a match with either of them inconceivable. For one thing, I couldn't imagine one without the other, and for another, a relationship with Fred would leave George stranded and vice-versa. A threesome was simply too naughty a thought to entertain, though I'm certain some of the gossips not only _entertained_ it, but offered it a rent-controlled apartment in their mental consciousness. I'd never considered myself better than average in the looks department, but between two redheaded gallants, maybe anyone looked good.

I decided that maybe I'd better start dating, if only to dispel the rumors. That turned out to be a profound disaster. Certainly, having only one clocksmith to keep track of made the bookkeeping easier, and consequently I had more time for such frivolities, but the wizards who asked me out were universally wrong for me.

There was Marcus Flint, whose idea of a romantic evening was a Quidditch game during which he discussed in intimate detail the advantages and flaws of each player. When he commented on the Seeker's large hands being an asset to the entire English people, I knew it couldn't last. The Seeker's my big brother, and the admittedly unusual Tickes hands are a particularly tender point of mine. Okay, so we can hold two coconuts in one of these paws. I can also fix a watchspring so tiny it can't be seen by the naked eye.

Then there was Simeon Edgecombe, who has to be one of the most boring humans ever to draw breath. I've met Percy Weasley and he can be a dull-as-chalk Ministry git sometimes, but Simeon takes conversational tedium to the level of great art. I listened to such a long-winded description of the Department of Broom Misdemeanors on my one date with him that afterward I let Fred and George take me to Quality Quidditch Supplies, just so I could contemplate _breaking_ one of Simeon's mincing little laws.

Hermione introduced me to a Bulgarian fellow called Viktor Krum, but again, he wanted to meet my brother. He did, however, remark that while on a man the Tickes hands are purely utilitarian, on a girl like me they're graceful. At least, I think that's what he said. There's a lot I couldn't grasp through the accent, and he couldn't pronounce my first name, either. Hermione warned me about that.

Ginny set Lee Jordan and I up on what Florian Fortescue called the most eventful blind date in history. When Fred and George found out what she had done, they made for the Leaky Cauldron with all imaginable haste and turned loose a good quarter of 'every trick in the book.' They may have even made up new ones on the spot. Apparently, dear Lee has a womanizing streak, and my 'brothers' didn't want any interference with 'their Jessie' –or my cooking skills.

After that debacle, Ron's friend Harry came to my rescue. He suggested mildly that he knew of one fellow whom I might get along well with, and proceeded to send me to the Three Broomsticks on a Gringotts' bank holiday I had off. Remus Lupin is a dear man, handsome in a detached, unkempt way, and intelligent enough to really have wonderful conversation with. Something simply didn't click, though. I took a watch of his to be repaired, and then asked that nice Auror with the multi-colored hair to deliver it, since she was going to be at a meeting with he and the faculty anyway. That may have been a wise move, and I acquired another good male friend, as well as a devotedly loyal, if odd-looking, female one. A girl can never have too many friends.

Alexander Bones was cute, clever, and friendly, but I beat him at Gobstones –nine times. There's a lot to be said for nimble fingers. It seemed to scare him off.

Nathaniel Borgin didn't seem quite as calculating as his father's Knockturn Alley shop would have you think, but he also cheated at poker. Badly. After almost two years in the company of the Weasley twins, it was quite a pleasure to neatly skin him and hang the hide on a fence, figuratively speaking. The man has so much gambling debt the goblins won't let him _in_ Gringotts, but every Knut he had that night went towards a wonderfully expensive night on the town with Fred, George, Ginny, and the Inseparable Trio next bank holiday. Smashing!

I don't know what possessed me to go out with Kyle Macmillan. He tried to kiss me in the carriage back from Fortescue's, where we had had brunch, and I simply squeezed his hand. Not gently, either. After Kyle dropped me off and went in search of a healer to repair the bones, I went up to my wonderfully decorated bedroom and sulked. Sure enough, within ten minutes the twins were at my side –both of them, actually.

"What did you do to him?"

"His hand looked like Harry's after Lockhart got hold of it!"

"The bastard got all…he tried…"

"Jessie! He didn't!"

"We'll kill him!"

"No, guys…" I sighed. How to put this to two males? "He just wanted to kiss me and I squeezed his hand to make him back off."

"Oh."

"Well, squeezed…"

"Jessie, you could make orange juice with those hands."

"And no pulp, either."

"Not that they aren't lovely,"

"And graceful,"

"But what makes you so nervous about kissing, anyway?" I must have been a very nice shade of scarlet by then, because as one, the twins let out an astonished gasp.

"You've never been kissed before!"

"Jessie, we never knew."

"Okay, okay. Lay off the amazement." I frowned at the identically handsome faces. "It's not like I had much of a chance, really. I mean, just because I've been busy doesn't make me a nun."

"True."

"You do know an awful lot of dirty jokes."

"And you did spend most of school bent over a watch."

"Instead of learning-"

"More rudimentary skills-"

"Like kissing."

"But what have you been doing on all these dates?"

"Besides outcheating Slytherins."

"Come on, guys, it's not like I don't want companionship. I mean, I don't want to stay a spinster clocksmith forever."

"You're not a spinster."

"You've got a great business."

"And you have us."

"Yes, I have you two! There's _two_ of you! As best friends you're great, but if I were to want something more, I'd have to pick one, and I can't do that." I looked at them and sighed. "Listen, dinner's in the oven. I have to go out to the Malfoys' and fix that old grandfather clock. If I'm not back by six-thirty, turn the oven on to three hundred an' fifty and let it bake until seven." I got my tool bag and headed downstairs toward the door.

"Wait, Jessie!" It was George, Fred following close behind. "After you're done at the Malfoys' place, Mum needs the family clock at home looked at. One of the hands sticks."

"And be careful when you're out at that manor. I know you can take care of yourself, but there's a lot of Dark stuff that goes on out there still."

"Alright, guys." I smiled and turned to go, but before I could, strong hands caught my arms and all of a sudden I felt kisses, one on each cheek.

"Not quite what you meant,"

"But an example of what you deserve."

"Thanks, you two." I hugged them, one with each arm, and kissed each on the cheek in return. As I left, I imagined them, each wiping my lipstick off the other with a handkerchief, and that mental image cheered me up a bit.

Narcissa Malfoy may have enough house-elves to staff a small hotel, but she doesn't know jack about grandfather clock maintenance. It didn't need to be fixed at all, just have the weights re-balanced and a bit of gunk cleaned out of the mainspring. As I explained what was wrong, the blond Malfoy boy seemed only as interested as the neckline of my shirt would allow.

"Just make sure to draw the left weight up before the right, and if it stops like this again, you need to take the weights off and shift the leads so that both are equal. If that doesn't work, you might need a link or two out of the longer chain, but that's something one of your elves could do for you."

"What if I want the clock…_professionally_ attended to?"

"Then you could call either our Hogsmeade showroom or the Diagon Alley shop. But really, there's nothing wrong with this clock, Mr. Malfoy."

"Call me Draco." Good lord, that guy had his father's voice, if not quite the charm yet, and his hair had gotten quite long since he was a fifth-year. "Would you care to see the clock upstairs?"

"Is there anything going wrong with it?"

"It loses time, only a minute or two, but one does like to be…_precise_." The young master of the house gave me a white-toothed smile. "It's from your family's shop, actually, though it's about a hundred years old. Quality does last well."

Oooh, that little bastard knew what to say to me! I was rabid about old clocks, and a clock built by one of my ancestors was more than tempting. If Voldemort himself had an early model Jas. W. Tickes clock, I'd have gone alone into _his_ bedroom, which is where Malfoy kept his. "I like to wake up to this clock's chime," he explained, lighting a candelabra on his bedside table and holding it near the face of the venerable clock. That room was velvet and satin and dark as a sewer.

"It's in wonderful condition," I observed, delicately opening the glass that housed the face and hands. "Good lord, this is one of my great-grandmother's…see the engraving on the hands?"

"Where?" Malfoy leaned closer, so that his head was nary an inch from mine. I could smell a very nice –and likely expensive- aftershave.

"Maybe if we had a little more light in here?" Malfoy whispered a spell and candles all over the room lit up, before he slipped his wand into the back pocket of what could only be leather pants. I quickly turned back to the clock to conceal my reddening cheeks. "See, right here on the hands, and in the scrollwork around the face."

"Oh, yes…it's beautiful." I smelled the aftershave again.

"So it loses time, you say?" I felt the key at the back of the old timepiece. "You wind it every day?"

"Every day."

"…Not too hard?"

"Not too hard," Draco promised, the candlelight flickering. That aristocratic, deep voice purred: "Firmly, gently, and well…every… single… day." I caught my breath.

"Well, then the problem's in the mainspring." I turned the clock around and opened the back. Absolutely no dust came out –Tickes clocks are built to resist it, unlike that foreign-built disaster of a grandfather clock downstairs- and I was astonished to see my great-grandmother's handwriting on the inside of the back. "It's never been serviced…by anyone."

"It's never needed it."

Draco's blue eyes were on me all the while I studied the antique clock. The problem was indeed in the mainspring, as no metal on earth lasts perfectly for a hundred years. Probably, though, no clocksmith would have stocked a replacement spring of quite the size necessary. Tickes clocks were always made to fit necessity, not standard parts, since the company started before there were such things as standard parts. Because of this, one of the first things Granddad taught me as a little kid was how to make a mainspring. It isn't hard, just cut the metal to the dimensions necessary, coil it, temper it, and install. I removed the old spring, which was indeed worn towards the center, and made an exact copy on the spot. Great-grandmother had had the foresight to make mainspring installation easy on her descendants, and within seconds I had the new part in and ready to tick. I closed the rear face of the clock, after marking my name and the date just below Great-grandmother's, wound it carefully, and gave the pendulum a gentle flick.

There is nothing in the world I love like the healthy tick of a well-treated clock. I let out my usual sigh of glad relief, or perhaps a more satisfied one, considering the timepiece, and set down my screwdriver on my unfolded tool bag with its compartments. I faced my client and smiled, rubbing a bit of 10-D off my hands.

"Is that everything, Mr. Malfoy?" All through my delicate surgery on the clock, Draco had been watching me. Maybe my sigh was a little much, but around a clock like that I couldn't have restrained myself if I tried.

"Everything for the clocks."

I don't know how it happened. One minute I was crouched over my tool bag, the next I was off my feet and on top of that velvet-covered bed. Draco's kisses covered my neck and face, and I could feel strong hands on my wrists. By struggling a bit, I managed to keep those kisses away from my mouth, but I got the nasty feeling that I wasn't quite as good at taking care of myself as Fred had given me credit for.

"Erm…Mr. Malfoy…get off…"

"Oh, I intend to." More kisses, and a hand running down my side. Crap! I realized he was holding both of my wrists down with one hand and easily twisted one a little loose.

"Draco…please…"

"Come on, Jamesina."

"No, seriously!" I remembered something Ron Weasley had said about Draco. "I'm…my mother was Muggle-born!" He seemed to blink for a second, but didn't let up. Dammit. I needed to think. What would repulse him? "I'm almost a Squib myself!"

Those blue eyes stared directly into my brown ones.

"That doesn't matter."

I realized that this wasn't a seduction of a new girlfriend. This was a spoiled rich boy shagging the help. Good lord, I had to get out of there. Something struck my memory…a story Ron's friend Harry had told about an old Auror…

I grabbed Draco's wand from his back pocket and hexed him point-blank in the ass. The shriek he let out was frightening, but I managed to shoulder him off, grab up my tools, and escape. I hated to leave the clock in a house like that, so as revenge I snapped his wand in half before getting my clocksmith self out of there.

Mrs. Weasley knew something was wrong the minute I turned up at the Burrow door. She gave me some tea and before I knew it, I had spilled out the whole story. She stood up, went to the writing desk, and then sent off a red-enveloped letter by owl.

"I realize she may be a so-called aristocrat, but I knew Narcissa Black at school. If I know mothers, and I am one, she'll take care of that son of hers –or else some very disturbing sorority secrets may come to light." I hugged her. "Oh, it's nothing, dear. I'd do the same for any of my children's friends."

"What seems to be wrong with the clock?"

"Oh, ever since Charlie moved back home from Romania, his hand has been stuck on 'Traveling.' It's probably not much to fix, but I'd also like to know if you could add a hand or two."

"Oh, that's no problem." I opened my tool bag and set it down near the clock. "Charlie…yes, the problem's in the gearbox." It really wasn't much to fix. The long journey and time away from home had simply made his hand need resetting. "How long do you expect him home?"

"Oh, he's working on another dragon book, fiction this time. At least a year." I took a couple of spare hands out of my bag and shined them up, checking to see which would be best for a family clock like this. "I don't believe you've met him."

"I've seen him in pictures once or twice." There were two hands, just perfect for the Weasley clock. "So, who needs to be added?"

"Penelope Clearwater…Percy proposed last night. And I've thought for a long time that Harry belonged on this clock …can you manage it?"

"Of course." I shined up the hands with a cloth and quickly cast the charm that gave them the necessary faces. As I installed them, Mrs. Weasley and I talked. "Be a nice surprise for Harry, finding himself on the clock next time he comes by."

"Oh, yes, and Percy will be quite beside himself. I expect in another few months you'll be back to add a hand for that French girl Bill's been seeing…oh, Charlie! Have you met Jamesina Tickes?"

"Oh, Miss Tickes!"

The most handsome male creature I had ever seen had come down the stairs in ragged jeans and slippers. His shirt was unbuttoned, showing several half-healed burns. "I'm Charlie…you made the watch my brothers gave me last Christmas." Numbly I shook his hand, oblivious to the machine oil on mine and burn salve on his. The fireproof watch I had devised was indeed on his well-muscled wrist.

"Nice to meet you…it does run well?"

"Perfectly." Charlie gave me a disarming smile. "Best watch I ever had. Even Norbert couldn't melt this one or make it stop."

"That's…good to hear."

"She's adding hands for Penelope and Harry."

"Really?" Charlie's smile has got to be one of the most knee-melting things on earth. "You'll be adding more eventually, if I know my brothers. How are the twins? Still very mischievous?"

"Oh… very." Mischievous indeed! They had deliberately planned this! Mrs. Weasley, who I now feel very certain was in on it, left Charlie to talk with me as I worked.

"So...the twins call you Jessie, right?"

"Yeah…Jamesina's a… family name."

"My brother's is Bilius; Bill for short. I think you may have got off light." I smiled and reached back toward my tool bag. Charlie moved to hand me the screwdriver and our hands touched. I will never know why or how, but he clasped mine in his for a second, appraising it. "Strong hands for a girl."

"Not for a clocksmith."

"Graceful, though. I can scarcely tie my shoes some days." Charlie held up a manly, burn-crossed hand. "Must be neat, working with clocks and watches."

"I love it."

"It's great to do what you love. Me, I work with and then write about dragons. It's what I love, but there are occupational hazards." He gestured to a burn on his chest and I closed the glass face of the family clock, finished. Penelope's hand was at work, right beside Percy's, and Harry's pointed to 'school.' Charlie grinned as I wiped my fingerprints off the side and rubbed my hands a bit. "Say, I'd love to see the boys' shop later. May I see you home?"

"…Of course."

I had never looked forward more to adding hands to a family clock. Hopefully, maybe, possibly, someday I might be adding my own.

A/N: Was that fun? The challenge was to write the Anti-Mary-Sue, an unremarkable, ordinary person unrelated to the plot. How well did I manage it? –J.McN.


	2. An Update

Chapter Two: A Clock 

It was close to seven o'clock when I reached the shop with Charlie. Fred and George had indeed turned the oven on, so a delicious smell filled the downstairs.

"Dinner's almost ready," I observed, setting down my tool bag next to the latest project on the big workbench. "If you like pot roast and veggies, you're welcome to stay."

"My brothers cooked it?"

"Not really. They just turned the oven on. I do the cooking here."

"That's…most ungentlemanly of them."

"Have you tasted their cooking? They do the _dishes_ here."

"Oh." Charlie smiled. "I like that arrangement much better. We used to do the dishes for Mum when she cooked. Are they still at their shop?"

"Now? Most likely."

"Thinking up new jokes?"

"Yeah. They closed a couple hours ago."

Blast it all, those redheaded guys were cute, and as impossibly, identically dishy as Fred and George were, Charlie had a calmness neither twin could match. Maybe being around lots of younger siblings and pyrotechnic lizards did that to you. His hair was shorter, but somewhat uneven, as if it had been singed in places, and he had a better tan, even if it was crossed in places with pinkish, half-healed burns.

Something entered my mind just then. My Uncle Gard loved fishing, and often came home impossibly sunburned. My grandmother had had a special cream she made for burns, and from her recipe my stepmother had concocted an even more powerful version, a bottle of which presently resided in my icebox in case of kitchen mishaps or working accidents. I opened the 'fridge and took it out.

"Here, roll up your sleeves a second."

"What is it?"

"My stepmother makes this burn stuff…it works pretty well." I opened the bottle myself, as, having closed it myself, it might be difficult, but to my surprise Charlie had rolled up both sleeves and showed no intention of taking the bottle from me. Cripes, was I going to have to…oh, _dear…_

The cream had its' usual tingly feeling as I rubbed it over the pinkest burns. One especially new burn still had gauze around it, and Charlie began to unwrap it.

"That stuff really feels good…what-all does your step-mum use?"

"There's aloe, and some kinds of herbs, and this Muggle stuff called lidocaine, and some spells while she makes it. I'm not entirely sure."

"It's very effective. That burn below my elbow was really hurting, but I can hardly feel it now." He flexed the arm a little and I resisted the temptation to stare. Charlie's arms were defined with sharply cut muscles below tanned, lightly freckled skin, and the smell of the burn cream did nothing to diminish the fascination. "My brothers have told me so much about you in their letters, I feel like I know you already. Is that odd?"

Odd? No. Making my knees feel like water? Oooh, yeah.

"Well, they do talk about you and Percy and Bill a lot…and Ron and Ginny stop by sometimes."

"Let me guess, with Harry and Hermione?"

"Usually." I smiled, relaxing a little. "They are somewhat joined at the hip at times."

"Poor kids. This war's really falling hardest on them."

"It is. Especially with those beastly reporters writing all manner of nonsense every time they sneeze, Harry especially."

"Have you read the Rita Skeeter ones from a couple years ago, when she had Harry as the heartbroken lover and Hermione as the smoldering temptress?"

"Oh, the Scarlet Woman Chronicles. Of course. Fred and George had the one article framed just to offend her."

"Well, I do confess, I did help her get back at them a bit. There's a Muggle shop in London where you can have fake newspaper articles done up, and I had a Muggle tabloid of Fred and George in bed with Dolores Umbridge made."

"Oh, eww! That was you?"

"Of course! It wasn't really her nude body, you understand, I'm not that crazy. My friend Kate found a suitably portly photograph on the Internet and attached her head."

"But however did you get Fred and George into the picture?"

"There's a computer program called Photoshop the Muggles have. You can work miracles of impropriety with it. Kate did the loveliest picture of Peter Pettigrew humping Lucius Malfoy's leg the other day. She's Muggle-born and tends to take things rather personally, not to mention she's got a dirty mind. Did you ever meet her? Kate Bowen?"

Yes, I had. She had dated my brother and spent her share of time at the business end of Rita Skeeter's quill. She had also referred to me as 'little Jamie,' which I detested.

"Er…I think so. The blonde, writes articles on magizoology?"

"Yes, that's her. We were posted together with the Romanian dragons for a while. She mentioned your brother once or twice."

"Yes…they dated a few years ago, I think." That seemed to surprise Charlie.

"Did they? I wouldn't have expected that."

"Really?"

"Oh, no. I mean, your brother…don't get me wrong, he's a nice fellow and a great Seeker-" I remembered that Charlie and Ian had been contemporaries on the pitch at school, "-but he's… a guy. Kate was dating a girl called Samantha last I heard."

Oh. So he didn't fancy her. I tried not to look relieved.

"Not to speak ill of my big brother, but he very well could have that effect on women, especially if he's refusing to wash his lucky socks again."

"Bill went through a lucky sock phase. I was always one for the lucky ribbon tied on my broom above the bristles. Did you ever play Quidditch?"

"Not really. My brother taught me to fly when I was ten, but I never made the team at school."

"Oh, it's a lot of work. I remember you being at practices, though, fixing our Golden Snitches since you were a first-year. Do you still do any work with them?" I gave him my best mischievous smile. After all, Fred and George _did_ call him the most trustworthy of their clan.

"Can you keep a secret?" I asked. Charlie obligingly mimed zipping his mouth shut and tossing the key. I opened a cupboard full of tools and spare parts, then opened the secret back panel. Within was my secret project, the product of almost eight months' work and countless hours of research. "It's a new design I've been working on." Charlie gasped and then smiled admiringly at the little prototype, which wasn't golden yet, but still resembled a Snitch in form. "Go on, you can touch it."

As his fingers drew near the little Snitch, it zipped into action, hovering just above his outstretched hand. It was rather smaller than an ordinary Snitch, and its' wings were more streamlined. He pulled his outstretched hand closer to his body, and the Snitch followed.

"It's so small," Charlie whispered. "You made this?"

"Just built it, really. I changed the designs my great-grandmother did for Snitches in a few places, added aluminum and titanium instead of brass and copper, and shrank her old design to one-quarter scale."

"It's two-thirds the size of a Standard Snitch, easily," Charlie marveled. "And it flies so smoothly. How is it powered?"

"Clockwork," I smiled, more than a little pleased with myself. "Not ordinary clockwork, though.  You never have to wind it or change a battery, ever. Can you guess?"

"It isn't quartz …could you even _do_ solar power?"

"Right in one." I held my hand near the little Snitch and it obligingly hovered over my palm. I pointed to a tiny dark patch on the top. "Solar, plus a self-recharging photo-lithium battery, so even though it's been in the cupboard, it flies okay."

"Jessie, it's amazing. Have you ever tested it?"

"With a real Seeker, on a broom? Not yet. It still needs some work. …Say, would you like to-"

"That'd be incredible."

"After all, you do know my backers for this feat of engineering."

"Fred an' George?"

"They hold the Gringotts keys, yeah, but it's your littlest brother who ordered it." I pulled a pair of bent, broken and tarnished old Snitch-wings out of the cupboard. "Ron brought home a busted-up old Snitch he bought from Madam Hooch for ten Sickles and asked if I could patch it up in time for Harry's birthday. I could've fixed the thing, but it would've cost more than a new one in parts and it'd still be out of date, so I decided to go wild. When the twins found out I was doing it, they insisted on paying for the metal and stuff I've used."

"Even the new parts? Snitch parts are… they're really expensive, though."

"Oh, I made all the parts for this. It's a lot like a watch in some ways."

"You can make parts like that, though? For watches or anything?"

"Of course."

"I thought watches all had standard parts now."

"Oh, some do, yeah, but not the really old or unusual ones. Yours doesn't."

"Could you make standard parts?"

"I could make any sort of parts to spec, which is to specific measurements, or to fit, which means I file and mess with a part until it fits an existing system of parts. Like, if somebody's grandmother's clock blew a spring, I'd just make a new one, rather than bothering with trying to find a standard part that would fit."

"But that's how you make a watch, you just make the parts and put it together –from scratch?"

"Sometimes, yeah." I was beginning to feel like I was being interviewed. Charlie was grinning broadly, though, and in spite of the timer on the oven, I felt peckish, so I uncrunched the top of a bag of Muggle potato crisps the twins and I had been nibbling at. "Want some?"

"Sure." He scooped a few into his hand, but didn't take those intensely green eyes off of me. "I just had this idea…could you make a set of watches?"

"A set? You mean, like matching ones?" I closed my hands over the solar Snitch and set it back on its' cushioned tower in the cupboard. "I make matching his-and-hers sets all the time."

"But could you do, say, thirty watches, all synchronized and with the same –what do you call the little motors?"

"Movement?"

"Yeah, same movement on the insides, different –what do you call the outside?"

"The case." I smiled a little at his not knowing clock terms.

"All different cases, and magic-proof."

"So there would be thirty watches, all entirely synchronized, with the same movement, but different cases, and magic-proofed?" Charlie nodded. "Of course I could. Planning a family reunion soon?"

"Er…not exactly." The dishiest of the Weasley brothers grinned at me, checked the door of the shop, then picked up a pad of scratch paper and wrote: _'Are we alone?'_

I took the pen and wrote back: _'I think so. But it's your brothers who live across the road.'_

_'Well, Miss Tickes, I'd like to place an order.'_ Charlie slid the pad back to me with a smile. I smirked and responded:

_'No problem, Mr. Weasley. What did you have in mind?'_

_'An order for the order.' _

I looked at the message and shrugged.

_'???'_

Charlie pulled back the pad and underlined the first letter of the second 'order.' I understood. Trying my best not to blush or giggle or do anything too goddamn girly, I wrote a few sentences:

_'Okay. First, though, wouldn't that be more than thirty? Second, would you like wrist or pocket watches? Third, shall I make them to suit each member? That would be a challenge and fun.'_

Charlie wrote back: _'Sure.'_

"So, these watches for your family reunion," I began speaking, watching Charlie's face carefully. He took the hint and gave me a big grin. "What did you have in mind for each relative?"

"Well, Miss Tickes,"

"Jessie," I corrected, then blushed furiously. "Erm- -that is, you can call me Jessie –I mean, my name's Jamesina, but that's –well, that's just awful, and…"

"Call me Charlie," he responded in a voice that made me reach for my work chair and sit down with a thump.

"Er…sit down, we can discuss this," I mumbled incoherently. Charlie complied.

"I was thinking, Jessie, that first you'd want to make a watch for my very old uncle."

"Uncle …Al?" I asked mischievously. Charlie gave me the grin again.

"That's the one. I was thinking a special watch for him."

"One that sets all the other watches?"

"That would be very nice. Could you maybe make a fake face for his, though, that covers the real one, and opens with a button, in case someone else finds it?"

"A dummy face?"

"If that's the term."

"Charlie, I'm going to show you something." I always did grow bolder when we were talking about clocks. Holding out my wrist, I indicated the second watch up. "See that watch?"

"Yes."

"It's ticking?"

"Yep."

"Watch this." I hit a button and the face flipped up, revealing yet another face, which was also ticking away, but at another time. "I made this watch with my grandfather when I was six. The first face shows the time it is where I am, and the other face is set to the exact time, second for second, as the watch my big brother wears, wherever he is. Every so often I'll check it, and the time will have changed, because my brother changed his watch to go across time zones. I can make your uncle Al's watch two-faced, and the top face'll work, and whenever he changes his watch, every other watch in the set will change."

"That," Charlie observed in that hotter-than-fire-make-dragons-wet-themselves voice of his, "would be wonderful, Jessie."

_"Jess-ieee!"_

"Mum owled us-"

"About that dumbass-"

"Rich boy and we're-"

"Ordering in dessert!"

"So, what do you want?"

"We're buying!"

None of the words I was considering were very ladylike, though I'm certain any one would have sent the chicken into a frenetic ecstasy of dance. Bloody Fred and George, arriving right when I was discussing watches with the most certifiable chunk of what Ginny calls 'dishy manflesh' since Josef Wronski. Drat.

"Hey, guys! Dinner's almost ready …and we've got guests! –er, _a_ guest…"

 "Charlie!"

"Big brother!"

"Back from Romania already?"

"Yeah, guys, I'm home."

"Are you eating with us?"

"Uh, yeah. I was just getting to know your friend Jessie here…"

All of a sudden, Fred and George got the _look_ –the one that appeared whenever a guy looked at me in any way other than as a clocksmith, in the sense that working female craftsmen are as sexless as a stick of gum. Their eyes blazed and then narrowed, and their jaws grew stiff.

"Jessie is not our friend."

"Jessie is our third twin."

"An unusually dissimilar and hereto undiagnosed triplet?" Charlie asked.

"Yes," the twins chorused.

"So despite the fact that Jessie has brown hair, brown eyes, is a girl, looks nothing like you, and is three and a half months younger –she is your triplet?"

"Jess, we didn't know you were three months younger!" As George spoke, Fred elbowed him.

"She is. And as our older brother, we are ordering you to not mess with her, because it would be incest."

"Because she is your triplet?"

"Yes."

"We have decided this."

"Guys, you're mad. We were talking about watches."

"_You're_ mad, Charlie!"

"You subverter!"

"Despoiler of innocent girlhood!"

"Talking about watches to Jessie is practically foreplay!"

"And if she's your triplet," Charlie observed, "and you know that talking about _watches_ turns her on, does that make it _twin_cest?"

I should remark that during this exchange, I went out, got dinner ready, and tried my damnedest to pretend not to listen.

"Dinner!" I called.

"Food!"

"Sustenance!"

"Edibles!"

"Dear, sweet Jessie," Fred observed, taking the stack of plates from my hands and kissing my cheek. "That broccoli looks wonderful."

"Adorable false triplet," George agreed, kissing my other cheek. "You remembered carrots."

"Friendly, nimble clocksmith," Charlie finished, kissing my forehead. "I didn't know pot roast could be cooked with onions."

"Oh, sure, you use this Muggle stuff, it's a kind of soup mix. My stepmother's recipe."

"Shall I carve?" Charlie asked.

"I'll make drinks."

"And I'll get the silverware."

"There's still potatoes in the oven. I'll get them." As I cut the baked spuds crosswise and added a little salt, I got the impression that this was a fine way to eat dinner; the eldest boy present carving the delicious roast, the younger two making drinks and setting the table, and the only girl doing up the spuds. It might have been a dad, mom and sons, a pair of newlyweds and the brothers-in-law, or even just three brothers and their friend-who-just-happened-to-be-a-girl, as the case was, but anyone else could have taken us for a family. "Charlie, how do you eat baked potatoes?"

"With a fork, mostly."

"Butter or sour cream, she means."

"Oh, both if you have them." I set a potato with butter in front of Fred and one with sour cream in front of George. Charlie was astonished. "How did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Oh, Jessie can tell us apart."

"Didn't we mention that in owls?"

"I wouldn't have believed it. Even Mum has trouble keeping you two straight. How do you do it, Jessie?"

"It's quite simple, when you know what to look for. Now, who'd like veggies?"

After dinner, while Fred and George washed and dried, Charlie and I worked out sketches for the watches on the kitchen table. Of course, by then my sketchbook ran to three volumes –all Tickes keep a sketchbook of neat ideas, because you never know when something will come in useful –and Charlie was quite impressed. There were a few watch designs I had done while bored in class that just suited certain professors, and Charlie was all for using them. The plaid wristband idea with the gold-plated lions chasing each other around the face was perfect for Professor McGonagall, and the little stainless-steel, adjustable band that could be reversed and had flowers was just the thing for dear Professor Sprout. Hagrid hadn't been a professor for long before I left, but I had enjoyed his company and covertly taken his measurement, just in case. His watch was already planned by the time our dessert arrived from Florian Fortescue's. I decided that stainless steel with a black industrial enamel finish was best for Professor Snape, metal band-style with a black face and chrome hands, and Charlie suggested tiny green crystals for the numbers. It was a darkly elegant design and I got the impression even the dour Professor would fancy it. For Professor Lupin, whose class I had loved for the short time he was there, I earmarked an old platinum case I had been restoring, as well as a chain. It would be an elegant pocket watch when I finished, in stark contrast to the shabby clothes he wore. I had already put an entirely new movement into his old wristwatch, but the old case had a stag engraved on it, and something told me he'd fancy it. I showed the old case to Charlie, though, and he frowned above a gentle smile.

"I know someone who'd like it more, Jessie. Where did you get this watch?"

"Oh, someone ordered it from Grandfather years ago and never picked it up. Evan somebody."

"Possibly …Evans?" I checked the old manila envelope and nodded.

"Lily Evans, yes. However did you –oh!" Charlie nodded sadly.

"Harry's mum."

"She ordered it to be ready in July…oh, no…that's why she never picked it up. It's got a horrible movement, rusted when I found it. Shall I spruce it up for Harry's birthday?"

"How do you mean, 'spruce up'?"

"New movement, clean it, add –Charlie, it's got his dad's initials in, and 'from L. and H.' It was for his dad. I'll set to work right now."

"Jessie, you don't have to-"

"Yes, I do. I've met Harry." Stupid girly me. I was trying not to cry by then. "He and Hagrid looked in the shop window when he was just a first-year and I was working my summer job. I waved and he smiled and waved back. He's a nice guy and he's had a really bad time of it, so I'm going to fix this watch."

"Is that why you made the special Snitch?"

"That's more for Ron, 'cause he's a nice guy, too, and he really wanted to have a nice birthday present for his best friend. That, and I _like_ fixing watches and messing with Snitches and making little, tiny parts. It's fun for me and helpful for others."

"Job satisfaction." Charlie took my hand and looked at it. "And even though you have to wear your nails short and your fingertips are all callused, you'd still keep on?"

"I'd wear them short anyway –used to bite 'em. But yeah."

"Then it's just like these burns on my arms. I like working with dragons and writing about them. It's fun for me, and other people can benefit from it." He has a great smile, and his hands just fit mine, which I discovered as he closed them gently over my palm. "I think we understand each other, Miss Jessie."

"What's going on?"

"Why have you got her hand?"

"Guys, cool it. We're discussing watches and watches go on wrists." I managed to blush only a little at that, but looking up over my glasses, I caught Charlie blushing too, and smiling just as conspiratorially. Oh, I liked him!

"Do you think a plaid watchband would suit Professor McGonagall?" he inquired of his brothers, neatly defusing the accusation bomb. Fred and George eagerly pounced the subject of watch designs and we were spared the Weasley Inquisition.

And that was how I met Charlie Weasley, and how I became an under-member of the Order of the Phoenix, supplier of watches and clocks to the side of good. It's a heck of a job, and I do have a lot of fun doing it. One of the best parts came the very next day, when Mrs. Longbottom came to have her mantel clock repaired.

"It won't take but a minute, ma'am. Looks to be the mainspring."

If you're noticing that I spend an enormous amount of time telling people that 'it's the mainspring,' you're dead on. Eight out of ten times a clock has a problem, it's the mainspring. After all, it's the primary moving part; it's very thin to begin with, and when a thin piece of metal moves a lot, it wears out. "I heard that your grandson took a prize for Herbology. _Mimbulus mimbletonia_'s an impressive plant."

"What prize was that?" Mrs. Longbottom inquired. I got up and handed her the _'Greenpage Monthly,'_ a gardening magazine I had forgotten to forward to my grandfather and then gotten to like myself. Neville had taken first prize in the under-21 Herbology contest the magazine held every spring. Mrs. Longbottom seemed very surprised and pleased.

"He didn't even write to tell me."

"Actually, ma'am, this is today's edition. I would bet you he doesn't know himself. I'd also bet that Professor Sprout helped him enter and he didn't tell you in case he didn't get anything. But a _Mimbulus_ being good enough for the _Greenpages_ …that must be one serious plant he's got. I had bad luck with marigolds."

That was true. My marigolds at age four never so much as bloomed. I didn't mention that I had later come in second in the _Greenpage_ contest when I was twelve for a bonsai Whomping Willow that still whacked people's ankles at home under the side window.

"I'll send him an owl this very minute! Have you an envelope?"

"Of course, Mrs. Longbottom." I handed her a little white one. "If you'd like to go over to Hogwarts, you know, be there when the people go to tell him, I can deliver your clock tonight."

"That would be wonderful of you, dear. Jamesina, isn't it?" I nodded, mentally wondering if I could legally change the disaster of a name my fool grandfather stuck me with. "I knew your mother. She and Frank were friends at school, and when he asked Alice to the Yule Ball in sixth year, she helped him pick out flowers. He was the one who asked her to come along to Hogsmeade with Alice and little Jimmy Tickes that time –dear, isn't that your father?"

"It is."

"How is he? I heard he remarried a few years ago."

"Oh, yes, he and my stepmother are very well, and my twin half-brothers, Robby and Davy, are each speaking in full sentences."

"Oh, that's simply wonderful! They'll be two soon, correct?"

"In three months."

"That is a lovely age. I remember when Neville was just starting to speak. He couldn't pronounce the 'l' in yellow. Dear, do you suppose he'd like a watch of his own? I have his father's for his eighteenth birthday, but it's rather a dressy one for everyday, and several boys from his class have got new watches."

Yes, they did. I made them.

"I know his friend Ron will be getting a new watch soon," I whispered, with a wink, pointing to a half-finished steel pocket watch, very plain, but elegant and manly. "From his brothers. I set the dial on a pivot with a floater, see, and it has a double face so he can use it to time Quidditch games as well as for ordinary watch purposes. It's not finished, obviously, but I think he'll like it."

"Isn't that awfully expensive, though?" Mrs. Longbottom looked concerned, then patted my shoulder. "I mean, not to speak ill of anyone, but the Weasleys have been in a bad way financially."

"So have the Tickes, at times, and the Weasleys have always been good neighbors. Fred and George Weasley eat meals here, you know; I cook and they do the washing-up for the three of us."

"But still, that's a very expensive watch."

"Not as much as you'd think, actually. The main cost of the average watch," I explained, opening the case and showing her the spring and gears, "is here, in the movement, in the case, on the face, and in the strap or chain. A showy watch will spend more on the outer parts and often have a horrible, foreign-made movement that'll wear out inside of a year. A really good watch has a leather strap or a good metal chain with forged links, a solid case, the face will be authentic, the hands will be strong enough, and the movement will be the best of all. A good watch that _doesn't_ cost a lot simply comes from a clocksmith who makes her own straps, buys metal at wholesale, does her own gearwork, has no payroll to meet, and gets her roof fixed by two neighbors instead of paying forty Galleons to have it done." I winked at her. "See what I mean?"

"How very clever of you!" the old lady exclaimed. "My brother Algy used to tutor the apothecary's little boy in Arithmancy and took a discount on potions ingredients instead of pay. I didn't think young people knew how to turn favor for favor anymore."

"Well, it's not that uncommon. I got Neville to help my stepmother out with the lawn and the Pumbleroses –the twins are a bit of a handful, you know- and fixed up this charming old alarm clock he had from somewhere."

"That was Algy's! It hadn't worked for years, Neville found it in the attic and had it fixed. I had wondered where he got the money!"

"No money necessary. Mum wrote that the Pumbleroses were _twice_ their old size after Neville looked at them."

"What an amazing thing. I do believe a new watch would be just the thing for his birthday in June…but could you have anything ready by this afternoon? The _Greenpages_ prize is quite an achievement, and…I don't know, I'd sort of like to mark the occasion with a little something he'd like."

"Well, I've nearly finished your mantel clock, ma'am, and there's quite a few finished pieces around the shop. He might also like something from Blossom and Roote's. I think they might have a sale on, they usually do in spring."

"This!" Mrs. Longbottom had seized on a little desk-type clock with a steel case and a hand wind at the back. "It's positively charming! But has it an alarm? Neville tends to be forgetful…"

"Oh, that's a Remindall clock. My great-grandmother invented them. It has _twenty-five _alarms, all with little tabs that pop up here," I made it demonstrate, a little red tab with blank lines appearing from a slot just behind the face, "and right there, you can write down what it is it's reminding you of."

"But it's perfect for Neville! How much?" I lifted the clock gently and checked the tag underneath.

"Ten Galleons."

"But that's giving it away! How can you charge so…?"

"It's made from recycled parts. Sometimes we get clocks in where the owner wants a whole new movement, even though only the mainspring's bad. It's quite easy to reuse parts if they aren't worn, and that way one's certain they work, and spared a little cost."

"A little? Tell me that clock wouldn't go for forty otherwise!" I looked at my shoes. "And you tell people why! Miss Tickes, you are as impossibly honest as your grandfather Myron!"

"Thank you, ma'am…he'd be very pleased to hear that…"

I'm certain that reply was addressed directly to my shoelaces.

"Old Myron Tickes would tell the truth even if it was You-Know-Who asking his opinion on politics. It does my heart proud to see his little ones are out of the same cloth. Neville will adore this clock, but I won't pay you less than twenty Galleons for it."

"But, ma'am…"

"Now, don't you go cheating yourself, Miss Tickes. Your grandfather's undercharged Algy and I for years, I'm sure of it."

"Well, ma'am…" An idea occurred to me. "I'll tell you what, Mrs. Longbottom." I picked up an engraved face I'd been working on and showed it to her. "Neville's in Gryffindor, right? I can put this face with the lion in, and it'll be fifteen Galleons even."

"Twenty."

"For twenty, I'll give you a service policy on it. Free repairs forever."

"Done. I know Tickes clocks, dear, they don't need service policies. I have clocks at home that your grandfather and great-grandfather built that have yet to need so much as cleaning. It's only the ones like the mantel clock that came from somewhere else I have trouble with."

"Well, your mantel clock isn't a bad piece, actually. If you were in the antique clock market, it could be valuable historically, if nothing else."

"How's that?" I showed her the movement, which was partly disassembled on the worktable.

"Here, here, and here," I explained, pointing, "there are errors in the installation. Not severe errors, really, just very subtle mistakes. The plan of this clock is an almost exact copy of a Muggle variety which was popular in the day, except for the jointure, the fly gear and the winding pin. This clock was done by a wizard, definitely, but one who was trying to improve on the Muggle design instead of getting into wizard clocksmithy."

"I knew the thing was old, but…" I tried to restrain a smirk as the elderly lady stared, puzzled, at her mantel clock's metal guts.

"How old, would you say?"

"It's been in the family for decades. At least the turn of the century is my guess." I grinned.

"This clock dates from 1813, Mrs. Longbottom. Any guess as to where?" She looked uneasy and intrigued, even curious, at the same time.

"I would have to guess Britain."

"Close, and a very good guess. It is _designed_ to look English, after all, but in point of fact, this clock was manufactured for the most part in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the fledgling United States of America, in a shop known as Lyon et Fils." I kept working as I spoke, finishing and closing the clock with all possible care. After all, I had a riveted audience. "The 'Fils' is a bit ironic, considering the only witch on the premises was the youngest daughter, who eventually took it over and improved the product to the degree that the shop was a key target of Union forces during the Civil War –their clocks were that valuable. This is one of the first magically enhanced clocks from the place, likely done by Daphne Gautier Lyon herself shortly after her marriage to Gustave Lyon. As a clock, its' value is about seventy Galleons. In the antique market, I would expect an auction value of between two and three thousand."

The bomb fell. My audience released her breath, then gathered it in again rapidly, then gasped again.

"_What_ was that figure?"

Gods, I love doing that!

"Between two and three thousand Galleons, Mrs. Longbottom," I repeated chipperly, as if this were a perfectly common and average occurrence in day-to-day business. I also began to carefully pack the mantel clock up in bubble wrap and a cardboard box with the company name. (Whoever says Muggles are stupid never used bubble wrap.) "Here you are. Give Neville my best."

"Erm…yes…thousand…right…" She clutched the plastic bag I put the box in as if it contained bottled youth. "Goodbye, dear…thousand…"

She was still mumbling incoherently to herself as she left. As soon as the old bat was out of earshot I smiled, sighed loudly, and did a little 'goooaaaaalllll!' sort of dance in front of the fireplace. I tried to calm down a moment later, but couldn't, then turned on my mother's old phonograph to help make the incredibly self-satisfied feeling dissipate faster. My stupid little end zone dance continued for the first quarter of the song, whereupon it simply became too much for my unseen and unforeseen audience.

"Jessie?"

And that is how Charlie Weasley, after Floo powder-ing in at the back, caught me dancing around like a nit to 'Waterloo' by ABBA.


	3. A Watch

Chapter Three: A Watch

Yes, there have been more humiliating moments in my life than that. There was the picture of me at two years old with my finger glued up my nose. There was the time I locked myself outside the girls' bathroom in nothing but what most Hogwarts students used for _hand_ towels and Luna Lovegood had to rescue me. There was the time I had sneezed and gotten the spring of an especially tiny earring watch under my eyelid and had to have a Healer with magnetic tweezers paw around my left eye for an hour so it didn't start cutting in and hurting worse than it already did. Mainsprings, in case you've never handled one, tend to be razor-sharp at the ends. There was the time I enchanted my quill in detention to keep writing, fell asleep, and woke up with 'I will not adjust the school clocks' written across my arm four times. They were off by forty-one and three-quarter seconds! Damn Umbridge. At least Dumbledore'd let me fix the big one when he came back. But I digress.

At any rate, none of those wretchedly embarrassing memories felt even remotely close to the level of self-loathing horror that I felt in that moment. There was the hottest, most wonderful chunk of what Ginny calls 'dishy manflesh' ever to cross the threshold of my shop, smiling calmly as if it were perfectly normal to discover the proprietress dancing around like a nit to Muggle disco music. I stopped cold in my tracks. If the floor had any consideration whatsoever, it would have called it's buddy the ceiling and had a tile squash me dead.

But it got worse.

"Hey, Jessie," Charlie greeted.

"Erm …uh…hi…"

I was more articulate in the picture at two years old.

"I didn't know you liked Muggle songs!" Charlie was giving me an incredibly cheerful smile. He stepped closer and before I knew what was happening, he had one of my hands in his. I found myself being pulled out of the back and into the main showroom, where there was more floor, and then spun around. And again! I was pulled close and spun out again, and then backward, so that Charlie's chest was close to my back.

In case you aren't familiar with Muggles, they used to have a sport known as disco, played in nightclubs with loud music and floors that lit up with electricity. As far as I can gather, score was kept by how good one managed to look dancing, how ridiculous one's clothes were, and how sweaty one got. I knew a little about it, as my uncle Gard used to play every night in some really hideous flared pants when I was just a baby, and after I learned to walk, he sometimes used to dance with me as an excuse for babysitting. I can't imagine where Charlie learned it, but he was a few years older, so he probably remembered seeing people play it a little better than I did, and I know his father is fascinated by Muggle stuff.

At any rate, we wound up dancing around the shop. Once I got over the shock, I do know a few of the steps, and Charlie showed me a couple more. As the song ended, we were laughing incredibly hard and breathing harder.

"Where …did you…learn to…do that?" I gasped.

"My dad …and mum…dance…all the time," Charlie panted. "You?"

"My uncle." We smiled at each other, breathing really hard, as the record finished and flipped over. As a little ditty called 'Dancing Queen' started, Charlie looked confusedly in the direction of the sound. "Oh! I have one of those Muggle turntables from the early seventies with the arm, so you can put a whole stack of records on and it'll flip them when they're done."

"I thought those turned out to be bad for records. Muggles don't make or use them anymore."

"I've made some subtle improvements…"

"Really? How subtle?" Charlie looked at the spinning record curiously. "Mom hasn't used the old one in years and she won't let Dad improve on it because of the Muggle Artifacts interference laws."

"Well, there are a few loopholes…but I suppose you'd know about them. I actually have a license to inspect, repair, alter, improve and transmogrify Muggle articles."

"A _license?"_

"Yep." I couldn't resist a smirk, because-

"The Ministry hasn't given licenses to tamper since…" Charlie looked incredulous.

"December seventeenth, 1789," we finished in unison.

"I know. Come 'ere."

My shop –I do think of it as mine- has four rooms on the ground floor. The glass storefront opens into the main showroom, which isn't very big, but there are velvet-lined shelves and glass cases for hundreds of timepieces. There's a doorway with no door that leads into the main workroom. The door on the left in the workroom goes down to the basement. The basement is two rooms; the safe room, which is where all the expensive or dangerous things are kept. I also have my furnace, smelting equipment, a spare work-desk and the demi-forge down there. Behind the main workroom is the downstairs loo and the half-kitchen. I keep the record player on the table by the work-desk in the main workroom, and I keep my Muggle Artifact tampering license in the third hollow-backed cupboard.

All of my cupboards are hollow-backed, a feature James Tickes the second installed during the French Revolution when we bought jewelry from displaced aristocrats. The first currently hides my secret Snitch project, the second is where my most secret watch projects go, the third is where the important documents stay, and the fourth is my candy and Muggle soda stash. They each have a different, complicated catch to open them, and not even my older brother knows the secret.

I opened the third cupboard, took out the false panel full of tools, and popped the back open. The license is in a frame, and I carefully passed it to Charlie. And yes, I did give him a little smirk. The license is somewhat impressive to some people.

_"'The Ministery of Magick hereforth confers the Right to Inspecticate, Repairify, Alter, Improve and Transmogrify any Article of Non-Magickal Manufacturity or Design unto James. Worthing Tickes,'"_ Charlie read. _"'Signed this day the six-and-tenth December, Year of Our Lord seventeen hundred and eighty-nine.' _The day before they made issuing them illegal. How on earth did your ancestor…?"

"As far as I know, the Minister of Magic owed James the second a favor." I shrugged. I knew a bit further than that, but it's in the line of what you'd call a clan secret.

"But this license says James Worthing Tickes. It only applies to…"

"Look a little more closely at the first name 'James,'" I suggested, offering Charlie a magnifying glass. That was a bit of theatre there, it was plainly visible if you knew what you were looking for.

"There's a period after the name, why?"

"It can be taken two ways. First way, it's a grammatical error. Second way, which is the way James the second's wife took it after her daughter was born, it implies a possible abbreviation." Charlie understood and grinned.

"An abbreviation…so it would apply to someone called, say, Jamesina?"

"Precisely. That's the real reason there's always one in the family –and why I'm named that… my parents weren't just being sadistic."

Charlie got a mischievous little smirk, himself, as I put the license back.

"So…does that mean your middle name is _Worthing?_"

"Shut _up!_"

"Oh, I think it's a lovely name …a bit masculine, but…"

"It was the maiden name of the first James Tickes' mother. It's Jamesina Worthing Elaine, if you _must_ know, and it could be rather worse, couldn't it, Charles Reginald?"

"I'm going to murder my brothers."

"Really? Care to borrow a…" I grasped around for a tool. "Leather punch?"

A leather punch, at least the kind I've got, is an intimidating little number that looks like what would happen if a really big office hole-punch mated with a cowboy spur. The first use that comes to mind when you see one, at least for me, involves body piercing of a rather fearsome kind. Charlie flinched appropriately.

"Jeez. Wouldn't want to be the shoplifter breaks in here."

"Actually, I haven't gotten any shoplifters in a while." I set down the punch and headed back into the front of the shop.

"Just lucky?"

"Well, that, or the Sneakoscope your brothers connected to the door may have something to do with it. I mean, it's hard to nick something from behind the glass of the cases, but since they put that in, a person so much as _thinks_ about swiping a watch and the door locks and the alarm goes off."

"Alarm?" I gestured to an ordinary alarm bell, mounted on the wall. He seemed surprised. "What, no dancing penguin?"

"Nope. I figure they figured an ordinary bell from them would be more of a shock than something crazy."

"Jessie…can I ask you a question?"

I looked up from the case I had been tidying.

"Yes?"

"…Exactly _why_ were you dancing in here alone?"

I bit my lip, which I do when I'm nervous.

"I…er…well, I rather like that song, and…" I couldn't lie to him. I can't lie very well anyway, but there was something about Charlie. Not only is he cute, but you wind up liking him too much to lie to him. "I was happy. I got to tell a customer that their old clock was worth money."

"Really?" Would you believe he actually looked interested? "What sort of clock?"

"Early American mantel clock. It was made at Lyon et Fils in Louisiana in about 17- …you don't have the faintest clue what I'm on about."

"So tell me. If it had you dancing…"

"Well…" I thought for a moment on how best to explain. "There's this clock shop in the United States called Lyon et Fils. They're about as old as we are-" I gestured about the shop, "but they used to be a Muggle shop until one of the sons married a witch. She and her children eventually converted the business to serve both magical and Muggle clientele. Kind of ironic how it's still called 'and Sons' when it was the daughter-in-law who made it so important, but…"

"Like here," Charlie observed bluntly. I looked away.

"Not so much. I mean, my great-grandmother did design arguably the best clocks the family ever made, but she did _have_ sons and they helped run the business while she was alive." I drew out the little watch I wear on a chain about my neck and showed Charlie. I've had it since I was a baby, and it's only about the size of a Knut, but it runs and you can see the little second hand racing around. "She made this one."

"It's …it's infinitesimal. How could anyone make anything so small that works?"

"Beyond me," I shrugged. "And she was quite elderly when she made it…eighty-six. Last one she ever made."

"I'd love to be that lively at eighty-six."

"Oh, she was almost frightening, according to Grandfather. With a great-grandchild and a second on the way, she completely redecorated this shop."

"That second grandchild was you?"

"Yeah. She sort of figured I'd be a girl, I guess. I'm named after her and my mother."

Charlie touched my hand.

"I found out today how your mother and great-grandmother died."

"Oh, did you?"

I really don't like talking about that. Yes, it's a terrible thing to have had happen, but I was only a few weeks old at the time. My father spent nine years in deep mourning and still refuses to speak of it. My grandfather and uncle decided to let well enough alone and didn't talk about it with me, which I appreciated. My brother Ian missed our mother terribly, being old enough to miss her, and whenever he spoke of her, I only managed to feel jealous. There were also about six well-meaning old biddies a year who try to get me to discuss 'my feelings' on the matter, when I'd usually rather discuss the vivisection process of decayed cephalopod bodies after eating.

So can you blame me for getting a bit distant, even with Charlie? I think he got the message, because no more was said for a little while.

"Well, er…I stopped by, because I got some materials for the watch set you're doing for my family reunion."

"Really?" I sprang up immediately and raced to the back. "I've already started …your cousin Sedrick's."

As I opened the drawer of my workdesk and drew out the half-finished watch, I could hear Charlie's stifled laughter. He came up to me with the notepad:

_'Cousin Sedrick?!'_

I seized the pen and wrote back:

_'You know, the cousin who's really into bats. Imitates them and everything.'_

That only made his laughing fit worse.

_'That's who I thought you meant.' _"Why did you start _his_ first?" Charlie asked aloud.

"I d'know. I just had the idea fixed in my mind. He seems to get along with my grandfather… Okay, look at this, but do not touch." I held out a black-steel watch face on a handkerchief. The numbers were, indeed, tiny green crystals, as Charlie and I had discussed.

"Wow." Charlie looked impressed. "It's almost too good for him."

"Now wait here." I went to the half-kitchen and got a paper towel, which I got wet, scrunched, and unscrunched. I hung it from two clips I had thumb-tacked to the wall, like a sort of moist bull's-eye. "Watch this." I held up the watch, pointed the face at the towel and pressed the tiny second button on the side.

There was a popping noise and a circular pattern of twelve green dots appeared on the paper towel. The dots grew in size for a few seconds and Charlie reached out to touch them. "Don't!" I cried, catching him by the wrist.

"What are they?"

"Crystals, like you suggested for the numbers. Shh." I picked up the pad and wrote:

_'Crystals of copper ferrocyanide, that is. Among the more deadly Muggle-style poisons. The watch-glass flips up and the crystals launch if you press the button and hold it for three seconds. It looks like dear Cousin Sedrick is just setting his time, but in fact, the poison is landing on the clothes or skin of Whoever He Needs Gone. In contact with human skin, the crystals take only about an hour, tops, to be Most Effective for the purpose.'_

Somewhat smugly, I handed the pad to Charlie. His eyes widened and he wrote back:

_'And how does a clocksmith know about the more deadly Muggle-style poisons?'_

I got a bit brazenly arrogant at that point, writing back:

_'Two words, Charlie dear. Hermione Granger. We owled half the night and I was up 'til four making that."_

"Only four?" Charlie asked. Anyone listening might've assumed we were chatting about prices. "How precisely did you design something that quickly?"

"It's not entirely my design. The crystal decoration-" a meaningfully raised eyebrow, "was something my great-grandmother did _in 1945_."

"Ah." He understood. "Well, the classics are the best, I suppose, but it's a very –erm, modern twist." He glanced at the watch I'd made for him and jumped. "Damn. I have to be somewhere in a few minutes. Uh…here's the materials I brought, and I'll …see you for dinner?" He pressed the handles of a leather valise into my hand and smiled hopefully.

"Dinner?" I asked, brightening. "You coming by tonight?"

"Er…no. I was rather hoping you'd come out with me."

Ohh, merciful peace, that smile…

"Out…with…you?" I'm _so_ self-assured. I could feel my cheeks going red and Charlie grinned.

"My brothers can feed themselves for once. See you at …quarter to eight?"

"…Sure."

"Great!" Charlie moved closer, then suddenly shook my hand. "And, er…don't worry 'bout dressing up. I'll …see you then!"

"…See you…then," I managed to mumble as he swept out the door.

I was still standing there with what must have been an utterly goofy smile on my face when the twins arrived.

"Jessie!"

"You'll never guess-"

"Who just bought-"

"Thirty-one fake wands."

"Flitwick must be going to _get_-"

"A whole bloody _classfull_…"

"…Jessie?"

Fred and George exchanged looks, just as I woke up and started tucking away the half-done watch for 'Cousin Sedrick.'

"Oh, guys. Sorry, I'm just…"

"Asleep on your feet?"

"You were up 'til all hours…"

"I was n- -how would you know?"

"The lights were on upstairs-"

"In your Fancy Ideas office."

"So, what were you cooking up-"

"Up there,"

"And what's for lunch?"

Bugger! I'd entirely forgotten lunch…

"Oh, dammit. I'm sorry, guys. How about we have lunch down the 'Cauldron …and then I've gotta get some sleep…"

"Why?"

"Got something on for tonight?"

"Or just beat?"

"I…" How to tell them? "I'm going out to dinner with-"

"Oooooh!" Fred and George observed in unison.

"Jessie's got a date…"

"You –_guys!"_ I glared at my 'heretofore undiagnosed triplets.' "Just because a cute guy asks me out to dinner doesn't mean I have a date!"

"Actually, I think that may be the _definition_ of a date," a female voice observed. I looked over the twins' shoulders and saw Ginny and Hermione. "What do you think, Hermione?"

"Definitely a date, especially considering you just described him as a _cute_ guy."

"Awwww…" Fred and George chorused. Before they could start their chanting again, I picked up the leather punch and they scattered.

"So what if it is? I'm allowed to date!"

"Who is he?" Fred asked.

"It isn't Nate Borgin again, is it?"

"Though you could use the winnings."

"No!" 

"Fred, George, why don't you two just duck over to your shop and we'll talk to Jessie," Hermione assuaged.

"I have to ask her a few questions anyway," Ginny agreed, before adding in a malevolent tone: "_Girl_ stuff."

_"Eww!"_

"Girl stuff as in brassiere watches?"

"Or girl stuff as in…_eww_…"

_"Out!"_ Ginny barked, and the boys vanished. She gave me a brilliant Weasley smile and calmly walked over to the door. Nimbly she detached the Extendable Ear and snapped her fingers loudly one inch from the auricle. Cries of pain were heard as she opened the door and let the thing snap back to its' owners. "So," she observed. "Now that we're in relative privacy, who's the chunk of dishy manflesh you're seeing tonight?"

I don't _believe_ her sometimes. But still, she and Hermione are the closest thing to female friends I have.

"Ginny, cool it," Hermione looked appraisingly at the green-spotted paper towel. "I take this to mean it works?"

"Very impressively. There's only one problem. The crystal decoration only looks good-" I raised an eyebrow, "for _one_ formal event. Then I have to tune it up. Will that suit the purposes?"

"Perfectly. Have you any spare crystals?"

"A hundred and forty-four." Hermione seemed surprised. "Well, a hundred and forty-four minus twelve…I used a French mold to make them. It used to be for paste diamonds of that size."

"Twelve shots at a shot. Nice, Jessie." Hermione shot Ginny a look that meant 'quiet!' An idea suddenly occurred to me.

"What if I made interchangeable faces? That way your friend could just pop another in when he wanted to –erm, change outfits? He could store them in an empty candy tube."

"It's brilliant!" Hermione seemed a little too pleased –hell, she seemed a little too _interested_ in the Slythy professor's watch. But then, she had given me the solution I needed for an undetectable, Muggle-type poison, so maybe she just had the thrill of the craftsperson. "You didn't have any trouble getting the things to make up the…"

"The er- _polish?"_ I asked. "Nope. I can get chemicals and solvents for metallurgy, etching…all kinds of stuff." It was true. Mixing up the poison was easy for someone who everyone in the Alleys thought of as a mere artisan. "Could you get the…?"

"Right here, Jessie," Ginny sighed. They were in Diagon Alley by the grace of a Hogsmeade weekend, a pass from McGonagall and Hermione's early Apparation license, and since I still don't Apparate well, I had prevailed upon them to courier my monthly fix of Honeydukes' crispy-rice chocolate. The damn owls sometimes try and eat the stuff, it's _that_ good. The redhead pulled the box out of her bag and then held it away from me. "Who's the guy?"

I can win against Gred and Forge, but not against bribery by chocolate.

"Charlie," I mumbled sheepishly, going red.

"What?!" 

"You remember, Ginny, your second-oldest brother," Hermione responded sarcastically.

"No, I mean…oh, _wow!"_

Okay, the Weasley Spontaneous Hugging Gene had better not be dominant.

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know. He said not to worry about dressing up."

"Well, you know guys," Ginny scoffed. "You can't go in _that."_ She said _'that'_ as if my shirt with the rolled-up sleeves and vest were somehow made from dead flobberworms.

"Why not this?"

"Well, Jessie, it looks good for everyday, and considering your work, but…" Even Hermione did not approve of my work outfits for dates. I knew it must be bad.

"Alright, will you two help me out?"

"I doubt we can have the full Gryffindor Makeover effect," Ginny observed. "You need Lavender and Parvati for the heavy stuff. But just picking an outfit that looks less like what my _father_ wears to work…"

"We can handle that."


	4. A Ribbon

Chapter Four: A Ribbon

For as long as I live, I will never understand the fellow members of my gender and their unnatural obsession with hair products. What can it profit a girl to use six different concoctions on what will eventually be put back into a ponytail anyway? Furthermore, I do not wish to have my head smelling like a fruit basket, a dessert pastry, an herbal remedy for dandruff, or anything called such a stupid name as 'freesia.' I do not care to know what my shampoo is made of, what seventeen herbs and spices went into it, or whether it is tested on humans or particularly vain chimpanzees. If it makes my hair clean, I am well enough pleased. If it also prevents dandruff, which I don't ever recall having, then okay. If it causes me to reek so strongly of strawberries that passing butterflies chase me, damn.

I tried to voice these opinions, which I find perfectly reasonable, to my two friends. Would you believe that they thought I was being funny? They then proceeded to bend me over the bathtub with my knees on a chair, then without further ado, drenched my entire head.

No, not then. Before that, they took my hair-tie and started making remarks about it, which continued as I was forcibly soaked above the ears.

"Is this a piece of leather?"

"Black leather?"

"You use a black leather hair-bow?"

"You're dating the wrong brother," Ginny chirped.

"Iff not 'cauff iff leaffer," I tried to protest. Hermione, paragon of humane treatment that she is –compared to Ginny, let me up. "It was a scrap from when I cut out some watchbands months ago, so I trimmed it down to an even width, and it works really well. What gives?"

"It's perfectly acceptable –on a white wig."

"Very Georgian," Hermione agreed. "As, ironically enough, are the rest of your clothes. Ginny, look."

"Okay, what is wrong with that?" I protested, as Ginny charmed my hair rinsed and dry. Really, why didn't she just do that in the first place?

The garment in question was a coat I wear when I go out in cold weather. It's made of crushed velvet and has lovely wide cuffs, four inside pockets, and a lovely fuzzy collar behind the nicely pointy lapels.

"Well…I don't think Thomas Jefferson wants it back, but…"

"Who's Thomas Jefferson?"

"American fella. He wrote the Declaration of Independence from England. Died in like, 1820-something." Ginny smirked and Hermione sighed.

"He died in 1826 and was born in 1743."

"Obviously, not in that order," I growled peevishly. "What's it to do with my coat?"

"Well, it's the same style they wore in 1789."

"So?"

"It's the same style men wore in 1789."

"Muggle men, in America."

"There again, Hermione, I doubt any will be present." Ginny sighed. "Perhaps Charlie will mistake it for one of those French designer numbers Fleur skips about in."

"I'm not likely to wear that tonight. It's too warm."

"Well, you've got to wear something besides that horrible getup you had on in the shop."

I had been wearing my usual shirt with a vest over. My trousers were gray, and I had suspenders under the vest that buttoned on. I had had my sleeves rolled up when the girls came by, and my collar and the first button down were undone, but my vest (brown suede front, black silk back,) prevented anything below my collarbone from showing. It was a nice outfit, of the sort I wore everyday.

I tried to point this out to them.

"It is a perfectly nice outfit, Jessie," Ginny agreed. "It would also be a perfectly nice outfit for a guy. There's nothing whatsoever that's even the slightest bit feminine. And the ten watches…"

"They stay on."

"I think we have to consider that a personal idiosyncrasy, Gin," Hermione observed. "You're no more likely to get the watches off of Jessie's arms than you are to get the quills out of my pockets, inky spots or not."

"What human in the world needs ten watches on at once? If they all run so well, why do you need nine backups? You look like Dung Fletcher with ten bloody watches on. I expect you to offer to sell me one in a dark alley."

Okay, she does occasionally have a point. I sighed and began unbuckling, unclasping, and untying the bands.

Yes, untying. Some people, Muggles, especially, insist that Muggles made the first wristwatch for troops in the First World War. They are quite mistaken. The first wristwatch was made entirely by accident when an enterprising but horrifically clumsy wizard who was researching some possible new uses for dragon's blood melted the back of his pocket watch.

As a half-melted watch tends to be hot, he dropped it, whereupon it stuck to his shoelace, which happened to be untied. I told you he was clumsy. The snow in which he was standing rapidly cooled the metal, and the shoelace, which by some miracle was only singed, stuck fast to the watch's back. Said watch was from my shop, (only it wasn't mine then, but my ancestor's,) and therefore, not-so-miraculously, did not stop working. The wizard, who was quite bright in spite of his total lack of coordination, thought for a moment and then promptly tied the watch around his wrist.

Actually, I suspect he had his wife tie the watch on. It's devilish hard tying your own watch, just as it is to button your own cuffs.

And that is how Nicolas Flamel invented wristwatches. I really don't know why it isn't on his Chocolate Frog card. That sort of thing's really quite interesting –well, to me at least.

In any case, that's how I explained my two tie-on watches to Hermione when she looked mystified. Many wizards still wear the tie sort, which are rather more comfortable, though a bit inconvenient, and it gives their wives something to do every morning after breakfast and before goodbye kiss. She may be Muggle-born, but I see no reason why she should not know important details like this.

Would you believe they found that important historical anecdote funny?

"Have you got a t-shirt?" Ginny inquired all of a sudden. "Just a plain t-shirt?"

"I…don't think so…"

"How can you not have a plain t-shirt? It's like- the universal garment."

"Well, I wear collared shirts to work…"

"And when you go out?"

"I…wear collared shirts."

"She has them in almost every color," Hermione pointed out.

"Granddad got so bent out of shape about that at first…"

"What? Colors?"

"'We have been here since before Diagon Alley was Diagon Alley. There is no need for apprentices to go frisking about in every color of the rainbow like a lot of butterflies in rut. Have you no white shirts?'" I quoted, smirking. Ginny's jaw dropped.

"He said that?"

"Well, he did eventually relent once I stopped being an apprentice… Full clocksmiths can wear whatever they want."

"Then why are you…?" Ginny trailed off, gesturing at my clothes. Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Jessie, it's nothing personal. I don't see anything wrong with your taste in clothes, and for what you do during the day, they're fine. I think what she's on about …they just aren't very practical for going out with someone."

"Why is 'going out with someone' such a big deal?" I groaned disconsolately. "I mean, Charlie's…"

It hit me right then. He wasn't just a friend. I had a bit of a thing for him –okay, a serious thing for him.

"…not a snobby git or anything."

"I've an idea," Ginny remarked suddenly. "How about I go over to the house and chat with him while Mum forces us to do the dishes? I'll find out exactly where he wants to go with you, and then I'll tell Hermione, and she can select something suitable."

"Why not just tell-?"

"Because he may be trying to surprise you, Jess. Honestly, how many guys have you dated?"

"More than once?"

"Ohhh, why do I bother…" Ginny sighed theatrically and headed for my fireplace. "I'll be back directly. Fear not. The Burrow!" And she was gone in a puff of smoke –well, Floo powder, really…

I looked pathetically at Hermione. She stifled a laugh.

"You go get some sleep. I can mind the shop until Ginny gets back."

"Thank you," I replied earnestly, heading toward the stairs. "Oh! There's 25 percent off sale on all of the gold pocket watches except the ones with mother-of-pearl faces, and those are 15 percent."

"I'll remember, Jessie."

"Oh, and don't sell the silver alarm clock with the blue face. Some lady wanted to earmark it and didn't have enough for a deposit, but she still seemed to really want it, so…"

"Jessie," Hermione gave me an authoritative look, "go get some sleep."

"…Okay."

I don't know what all I dreamt about, though I did have some dreams, and that's unusual for a nap. At about five-thirty that afternoon, I awoke to the unmistakable sound of feminine fluttering in my closet. Yes, I have had other females attempt to de-scruff-ify me before, particularly my kind but misguided stepmother, roommates, and assorted girls I more or less considered friends. Really, what's so wrong with dressing in a professional manner? In any case, there was definite activity in the closet, and I decided to go and investigate. No sense delaying the inevitable.

Oh, was that _ever_ a bad idea!

Ginny had brought in reinforcements.

Lavender Brown let out an excited chirp and raced over to me, a bit of fabric too large for a respectable handkerchief, too translucent for a respectable shawl and too bloody small to be any kind of shirt. It was a nice color –well, more than one, actually, sort of a tie-dye pattern with lots of blues and pinks and lavenders, but it was decidedly see-through and I must say, I flinched at the sight of it.

"This is perfect! Ginny, get the blue camisole and the sparkle jeans!"

"I brought boots!" Parvati announced, holding up an ominous large suitcase.

"Earrings?" Padma suggested. Good lord. Padma was from my House! I'd considered her sensible!

"I have some," Luna Lovegood offered, holding up something too far away to see. I visibly winced and Hermione patted my shoulder before snapping her fingers with a sound fit to wake the dead.

"Guys!" The melee went silent and I looked at my bookworm friend in astonishment. "One at a time. The object is for this to be as far from traumatic as possible."

"You of all people, Hermione," I mumbled quietly, as the others resumed their discussion more quietly. "I thought you were on my side in this –fussing about your looks is a silly waste of time –idn't it?"

"Well…it wasn't my idea to bring _them_ along –well, maybe Padma, but… I kind of want to see how this little project turns out," she confessed; sadistically, in my opinion. "That, and I sort of want this date to go well with you and Charlie."

"In Merlin's name, _why?"_

"Let's put it this way. Ron's like my brother, and therefore Charlie's like a kind of older cousin. You're definitely a friend. I like to see people I care about happy." I stared at her. "That, and it'd be nice for Ron to have one of his brothers dating a girl he doesn't either fancy himself or find impossibly annoying. You fit that category nicely."

"Off with the shirt, Jess," Ginny commanded, holding up a dark blue scrap of fabric. I reluctantly obeyed, only to be suddenly the object of an impromptu judging panel. "Bit weak in your midfield," the redheaded Chaser observed, poking my stomach, "but not too bad."

"Are you acquainted with the _sun_ at all, Jessie?" Lavender inquired, looking over my arms. "It's that yellow ball in the sky what gives people tans. Might want to go and visit it sometime."

So I'm a little pale. I work indoors!

"Try on this blue cami," Parvati commanded. I looked at the tiny garment, which had straps I wouldn't have used for a miniature watch, let alone a shirt, and gasped.

"This …is a handkerchief…"

"It's like a kind of tasteful undershirt. You won't be wearing only it," Hermione reassured. I sighed and pulled on the miniscule scrap of cloth, which, to my surprise, was quite stretchy and actually rather nice. "See?"

"No visible bra straps here!" Ginny announced, letting fly a little spell I did not want to _know_ about, let alone feel. I glanced downward and jumped.

"…Er…Ginny? …where did my bra go?"

"I changed it a bit and turned it invisible."

"…Oh. …you didn't…like…_pad_ it?"

"No. I just changed the design a little. Like?"

What I _wanted_ to say: 'Ginny, if I was a _guy_, I'd 'like'! I look like a strumpet!'

What I _said_: "Oh." And I shrugged.

Actually, now that I think about it, the outfit the Coven had chosen for me was really not that bad. With the flimsy, see-through tie-dye sort of shirt over, the cami-thing didn't look that slutty at all. But somehow it wasn't me.

"Here," Padma, the clever one, held up my new vest. It was actually very unusual for me as well, being black leather with chrome zippers and snaps. "Put this over." Lavender gagged, Parvati gave her twin a glare, and Ginny sighed. But put it on I did, and-

_"Whoa…"_

"Perfect!" Hermione confirmed.

I suppose the combination of somewhat masculine leather with ultra-feminine see-through clothes that look like Trelawney's laundry works, somehow. Ginny gave my leather hair-bow back, after transfiguring it a bit longer and wider, and the effect was …rather nice, actually…I guess.

But they were not done with me. Oh, no.

"Time for the makeup!"

…why wasn't I a boy?


	5. A Watch Knot

Chapter Five: A Watch-Knot

It was during the process of the makeup, I think, that I decided the whole thing was a bad idea. I resolved to call Charlie through the fireplace and, as politely as possible, call it off. I resented being fussed over, I really felt uncomfortable in my clothes, nice though they looked, and I was just too damn nervous to deal with that sort of mess.

I was also too damn cowardly to say this aloud. After all, one of the dangerous females with a brush within eye-poke distance was the sister of aforementioned dishy guy. Besides, I had already endured enough. It would be a shame to go through all they had done to me and then not go through with it. Besides, Hermione and Padma were making a good effort to not let me wind up looking a trollop.

Padma's the shyer twin, and, I suspect dimly, the smarter one. She quietly took charge of the makeup operations, and within a few minutes I looked a lot different, but subtly so. Lavender and Parvati's strategy seems to involve a small trowel for makeup products, if you go by the amount of gunk they slap on each weekend, but Padma favored the Very Small Brush approach. I seem to recall seeing her working on a few watercolors in the Common Room before I graduated. It must have paid off. There was delicate dusting of several very sheer colors above my eyes, which made up for the fact that I tend to squint, an almost imperceptible darkening of my lip (what did she do, _think_ about lipstick?) and a little swipe with a soft brush over each cheekbone stopped me looking quite so much like a cave dweller.

I don't go out in the sun much, as the hours when the sun is out are usually the same hours people are shopping for clocks or the hours I spend designing and making clocks. Sometimes, though, I absolutely _have_ to go out in the sun to work on a project. Natural light is very important for matching colors, or making sure they compliment each other. On those occasions, I go up to the attic and (this will sound strange,) open the window onto the sloping, slate roof. There's a wives' walk just below the window on the south face of the house, which is the architectural term for a little balcony-like thingy with an intricate wrought-iron railing that's like a kind of fence.

The original purpose of the thing was for the wives of sailors and sea captains and such to have a place to pace around and watch the sea for their husbands' ships. A romantic idea and a lovely bit of decoration, but on the roof of a Victorian-era clock shop, it's really more like a wives'-two-steps-in-either-direction. It's also quite narrow, and if I sit down with my legs stretched out in front of me, I can work on my lap-desk while leaning against the railing.

I usually take a pillow for the railing if I expect it's a long project. That railing _is _wrought iron.

Oh, yes, and a lap-desk is what would happen if you either glued a piece of plywood to a pillow or upholstered one side of a finished walnut panel with elegantly routed edges. You set the pillowy bit on your lap, and it makes a desk. Mine is of the finished-walnut-panel variety, upholstered with Ravenclaw-blue velvet, but it _was_ a pillow-glued-to-a-bit-of-plywood before Fred and George decided to transfigure it nicer. I had just gotten one splinter too many, and since they're the ones who had to watch me coolly pluck a quarter-inch of plywood out of my palm and comment on the size and blood as if it were a new record, I can see their point.

Merciful peace, where was I? Oh, yes. I don't go out in the sun much, unless it's in the evening, so I _am_ somewhat pale.

Wow. I can take a simple lack of a tan to natural light to architecture to inventions to first aid and back. Professor Binns would be so disgusted. If he ever enriched a topic or went on a tangent, he'd die again. But then again, I loved his class. There's an entire line of alarm clocks I designed in there while I was trying to stay awake.

_Anyway…_

After Padma pronounced me 'done,' we all went downstairs and waited around the shop for a little bit. We ate some Every Flavor Beans, which are no fun to eat alone and dangerous anyway –what if you bite down on a pepper one and choke? I'm certain at least one person's died that way, and also some really delicious Muggle candies. Harry got Ginny hooked on them and she carries loads around in her pockets and purse and even amidst the books in her schoolbag. They're round, come in little paper tubes, which you slowly tear away, and have holes through the middle. Ginny's first thought was that the holes were for whistling through, like Crackpot Whistling Sweets, but they don't make a very good noise. Parvati suggested that perhaps they were like candy-necklace beads, and since they come in many flavors, she seemed pretty well onto something.

I had some Liquorice Bootlaces, which used to be a Muggle thing too, but which, since they're like tape, were very little help. A bit of maneuvering with a paring knife later, we split the Bootlaces into a sort of Liquorice Garrot Wire, three from each Bootlace, nearly six feet long, and made candy necklaces. We may be the pride of Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, but we are still girls, after all, and sometimes maturity goes on holiday. The Butter Rum flavor ones looked like amber and the minty ones looked like some kind of shell, so once the Patil girls showed us this sort of braidy-thing to do with the Liquorice Garrot Wire, we made some pretty neat-looking stuff. It looked like leather and beads and was still really tasty. Hermione acted like we were nuts, but then, she's the one who showed us that if you turn off the lights and bite the wintergreen ones really hard with your mouth open, you can see green sparks. Muggles aren't as stupid as some wizards think, you know, making light-up mints. She also gave in and made a bracelet in the end that wasn't too bad…probably intends to wear it in case she needs a snack in the library. Madam Pince is impossibly strict about munchies, and Hermione practically lives in there.

The girls left at seven thirty so they'd be sure to make the eight-o'clock prefect curfew. After all, Hermione was the only one who could legally Apparate, so she either had to take them all in jumps or do up a Portkey, something _I've_ never been good at, or else Floo to the Three Broomsticks. One time I took the Floo from the shop to there and landed head first in the fireplace. I was a little bruised, but Madam Rosmerta gave me a lot of free butterbeer and sent an elf over to get Uncle Gard to come get me. In retrospect, it was likely not a good idea to give a potential concussion victim butterbeer, but then, it was likely not a good idea to let me use Floo powder, so it all evens out. While I was waiting for Charlie, I finished a bit of gold inlaying on a grandfather-clock face, ate some of the white Muggle-candies-with-holes that had broken while we were making the necklaces, did an order of engraving on a pocket watch, and repaired a broken fob chain.

I was just polishing up the fob chain when he arrived.

"Jessie?" he called, stepping inside the door while the bell jingled. I looked up, smiled, set down the watch, and invited him in. He came the rest of the way in, being careful to gently close the door –in case there was something fragile, or in case his brothers were watching, I suppose. For once, I wasn't such a nervous wreck …possibly due to those little candies with the holes in them, or perhaps I had been working on projects I rather liked. Charlie ducked over and into the kitchen, opened a cupboard, and selected a medium-sized glass. This he filled with water and brought to my worktable. He then added a double handful of violets. I had been rubbing the engraving oil off my hands and had barely caught that he went into the kitchen, so the entire performance was a bit of a surprise.

"Oh! …Charlie, they're beautiful…"

"They grow in the meadow behind my house, so…"

"Actually, I've always liked violets best…"

"Really?" This seemed to brighten him up quite a bit. "Well, it's a funny thing. Mum had me mowing the lawn again, and I noticed we had violets again, so I got a bunch, and set them in a glass. I got some lemonade and went out to finish the lawn. Well, when I came back, Pig –that's my brother Ron's owl, Pigwidgeon, he'd come with a letter and was drinking the water out of the glass. He'd, like, pulled half the flowers out so he could get a drink."

"Poor little guy," I sympathized. I'd gotten notes from Ginny with Pig before –written back answers on a coffee filter, so as to be lighter on the little bird.

"So, I –er…picked some more. There's a near inexhaustible supply on the meadow there…sometimes we get these great flop-eared rabbits come out to have a snack, and they can't make a dent in 'em. Besides," Charlie seemed to be quoting, "'it is proper and, indeed, advisable to bring a lady flowers when you invite her to go somewhere. Ladies are notable keepers of diaries, and no matter what goes wrong on the outing, if there are flowers in evidence the next morning, she is certain to write a favorable report in said diary, which she will consult when you invite her out again. The presence of flowers has a remarkable effect upon diaries.'"

"Algernon Montcrieff, wasn't that?"

"Precisely. It's a little outdated…I bet you've never kept a diary in your life."

"Not since my fourth year at Hogwarts. I keep a sketchbook –filled with watches and clocks and even a sundial or two."

"I keep a kind of dragon diary…write down what they're up to each day, how's their health, any new developments, all that sort of thing. Oh, and speaking of…" Charlie took a roll of soft, green-black material out of the inner pocket of his vest. "Has my littlest brother told you about Norbert?"

"Yes! He was the Hungarian…no, the Norwegian Ridgeback, right?" Charlie unrolled the stuff -clearly dragon hide. "Oh, _no…"_

"Oh, it's nothing serious, he just had an appendix out." I must have looked really startled, because he explained: "Dragons have four, you know. Poor Norbert had an abscess from his upper left, so they finally took it out, but there was quite a bit of excess skin from the abscess, so the healers took a little section out."

I was looking at a seven-by-thirty-six inch piece of dragonhide.

"A _little_ section?"

"To Norbert, this was like a quarter of an inch on us. He's really grown since Hagrid looked after him. …I was thinking, you can make leather watchbands, eh?"

"A dragonhide one for Hagrid?"

"Yeah. Could you…?"

"Of course." I laid out the sample across the leather table and flicked on the light. "Actually, this may be easier than leather. With the pattern where his scales were, there's an almost perfect grain…and it's surprisingly soft…"

"Norbert's still quite a young dragon."

"There's enough here for…wow. Something like _six_ watchbands, even in Hagrid's size. One for you?"

"I've _got_ a watch," Charlie reminded, indicating the one I had made. "But for the set…yeah, I think one from Norbert could be cool. I'd also have an excuse to wear two. Set my unmeltable watch to Romanian time and my dragon watch to, er- London time." He glanced down at my wrists. "…Where are all of yours?"

"Oh…I…"I collapsed. I fell off the watch-addict wagon. I'm a creature of habit with no discernable willpower and Ginny would be disgusted. "…I feel naked without them! Give me two minutes." I raced upstairs and got the entire lot, putting them on as I walked, in their proper order and with a nice relieved feeling. Charlie, astonishingly, was smiling without having to stifle laughs. He came over to the foot of the stairs, caught up my tie-on one, and helped me on with it, even as I buckled another. I stopped, turned my arm over, and let him do it.

My heart, it should be remarked, was beating at a rate and level that I'm sure was perfectly audible in his brothers' shop. Charlie, for all the burns, did have agile hands, and yes, he knew a proper watch knot. There are two leather strings that close the wide leather strap, to which the face of the watch is looped, and he knew to tie them separately, then the loops of each bow together, then tuck the low loops in. It's an intricate little practice, which, since living alone, I'd had to do either with my wand or (I blush to admit this,) my other hand and my teeth. Having help with it was…so…

I can't really get into that.

"Well, now, Miss Tickes," Charlie observed in that soft voice I'm certain he could use to calm a whole mess of dragons at once, "shall we be on our way?"

"Yes, Mr. Weasley," I managed not to stammer. "Just let me lock up."


	6. A Picnic of Sorts

Chapter Six: A Picnic –of Sorts

I locked the shop from the inside. It's easier that way. Charlie looked slightly confused, then nodded knowingly.

"Best not be seen leaving by Gred and Forge," I reasoned aloud. "They'll just follow and play tricks."

"Have they done that often?" Charlie asked, following me to the back entrance. I smirked ruefully.

"Once, so far."

"Really?"

"Yes. Lee Jordan, of all people. Apparently they did not like the idea of their best male friend hanging around their best female one…puzzling sentiment."

"Well…having met Lee, I'm not entirely certain I disagree."

"Really?" I tried my best not to laugh at that. "So you'd be scaring guys away from me with exploding cocktail nuts also?"

"Of course not." Charlie smiled gently. "You're capable enough. If the guy were _real_ trouble, though…"

"_Then_ you'd spring for the exploding nuts?"

"Jessie, what do you take me for?" I really did like his smile. "I'd use Norbert."

I sighed in mock disgust, then turned the key in the lock of the back door. Carefully, I hopped down the old back stairs. They're incredibly rickety and you have to skip the next-to-topmost and fourth one down, as they have a bad tendency to fail under weights in excess of a kilogram. I _would_ fix that, but considering my location, it seems like a better idea to just leave my back door a little less vulnerable.

"Careful on the stairs…skip the ones I skipped."

"Which were –oof!"

Charlie's right foot went neatly through the fourth step down. Quickly as I could, I was back up the flight, next to him.

"Here. Lean on your left foot so's you dinna fall…" Fortunately, Charlie already had, and his foot was only a little of the way through. The step, being metal, as are most of the external fixtures, had caught him as he'd instinctively tried to pull his foot away from the failing surface. I put his left arm over my shoulders and leaned on the banister. "Count 'a three, pull your foot out." I crouched down, bending my left knee, and carefully pressed down the broken step with my right. "One…two…" I waited, pressing slowly until his foot was free. "Three." He lifted his foot and I let go of the bad step. "You okay?"

"I'm fine …dangerous steps you have, though."

"Yes. I would fix them, but-" I gestured to the neighborhood we were now in.

"Ah," Charlie seemed to agree with me.

I know it must have startled him. My shop is near the corner of Diagon and Knockturn Alley, and my back entrance opens into the back alley of the most back-alley Alley (does that make sense?) in all of London. He wasn't so naïve as to visibly gulp upon seeing just where it was I lived, as _some_ people I've known have, but he was quite clearly on edge.

Hermione had an interesting little theory on why that is. Dark _or_ Light wizards, regardless, all seem to get a little case of the twingy-guts and the shivery-spines when they go into Knockturn Alley, with two exceptions. Muggle-born people, who after a point expect anything anyway, usually have to be _told_ what a dodgy place it reputedly is. Being told something is dodgy after you've gotten a look usually doesn't leave much room to be intimidated.

The other exception is tradespeople, like me. They're perfectly used to living in Diagon or some other Alley, they keep their shops, and generally see more or less everything in the course of long careers. Knockturn Alley is merely the next street over from me, and for some reason it fails to scare me. I'm not stupid, of course, I wouldn't go there alone after dark; but it by and large doesn't bother me. I leave the steps the way they are as a backup, though I'm really as likely to be burgled as Gringotts –but that's a long story. Charlie had grown up with scary tales of Knockturn Alley, and as much as such a forbidden place slightly fascinates most wizard children, he also had the sense to be a bit worried.

"It's not so bad," I remarked coolly. A touch of mindless bravado there, I admit, but it seemed to make him feel a little better. "Come on. We can get back to Diagon through the break two stores over."

"That's alright. We could just Apparate from here."

"Oh. Good point. …Where are we going?" I glanced at a rat near the rain gutter, hoping I didn't have to do any long-distance Apparating. I'm really quite bad at it.

"Hmm…know what?" Charlie gave me one of those mischievous grins again. "Hold still. …and shut your eyes."

I complied. Why not? Soon, however, I felt a weird pulling near the waist of my jeans. Good lord! Weasleys didn't usually…they weren't the sort who'd…

I felt the strange pull of the Apparating next. It was very strange. Finally, Charlie touched my hand and told me to open my eyes.

"Oh." I realized what the funny pulling was -nothing 'funny' at all. Charlie had simply hooked our belts together with a clip-ring. "How clever!"

"It's how we move tranquilized dragons," was the oh-so-flattering explanation. "Only that takes about nine people and we have to put the dragon in harness."

"I had wondered how you moved them long distances."

"Yeah…you can't just levitate or lorry an unconscious dragon through a Romanian village …unless there's a parade on, then you just shake some glitter on him and dress up a friend as St. George."

"Are you serious?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

We were both smiling as we stepped out of the alley into Muggle London. It was early evening, and the sky was doing some very pretty things as it got ready to put the toy sun away. The buildings and streets are really different in many ways from the Alleys and Hogsmeade, where I grew up, but I had visited often enough not to be startled. A little bus, only double-decker, came to a stop and Charlie took my arm, leading me onto it.

It occurred to me that I had five Galleons and ten Sickles in my pockets. Unless the Muggle driver was some kind of numismatist… but it turned out to be okay. Charlie had gotten some of his changed before leaving. It only cost two little coins apiece, actually, somewhere between Sickle and Knut in size. We took a seat in the back of the lower level, and sped slowly (well, in terms of, say, the Knight Bus, we were slow, in terms of walking it was quite zippy,) toward wherever it was we were headed.

To my surprise, we blended in rather well with the Muggles. Charlie had on jeans like mine, only more masculinely cut, black boots that looked like just ordinary leather, a white shirt with buttons, and a green suede vest. (I knew it was suede –no scale marks.) Our outfits were similar in design, jeans, collared shirt, vest, boots, but very different in substance. To my surprise when I glanced in the bus window, I looked unusually girly. Charlie looked handsome, but then, in my opinion he always did. I didn't quite know what to make of it. Did we look like a couple? Were we, for the purposes of the evening?

I didn't want to think about what Fred and George would say.

"How's the shop been lately?" Charlie asked. I woke up from the little reverie and answered:

"Pretty good. I got some new materials in awhile ago, but it looks like I short-ordered micro-grain solder again."

"Micro–what?"

"Micro-grain solder –you know what solder is?"

"That kind of meltable wire you use to connect bits of metal with?"

"That's it exactly. Well, grain solder is just like that, only instead of coming in big rolls of wire, it comes in little grains like metal pretzel salt. Micro-grain solder is like little grains of metal _table_ salt."

"Oh. So, you just put a grain or two where you need to join up some really tiny parts, and then you make it hot and it solders 'em?"

"Precisely! Have you been reading up on this or something?"

"No…just seemed kind of logical. That, and Dad's forever messing with Mug- you know, antiques and stuff." We were, after all, surrounded by Muggles. –Well, not quite _surrounded_, there were only four or five other people on our floor of the bus, but we were 'on their turf,' as my brother says. I changed the subject.

"How's the writing going?"

"Well…I'm a little stuck, but it's just a question of the bleeding 'R' key getting tangled with the 'D.'" I must have looked fairly blank. "Dad found me a tap writer. It's quite nice."

"What's a tap writer?"

"It's a little machine for writing, very neat. You put a piece of paper in the top, and scroll it down, and then you just tap the key for each letter, like playing the piano."

"Sounds hard."

"Not really. The letters are all printed on the keys." Charlie took a piece of white, smooth paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. "And see how nice it looks."

I looked at the neat, even letters and careful, exact numbers –he had tap-written what looked like a train schedule, but the letters all looked like something out of a book, they were so regular. Muggles really do have some neat ideas.

"It does look good…I should likely look for one for keeping the books and such."

"They aren't hard to find. Dad got mine at a rummage sale for a pound." He didn't dare give me the corresponding amount, but I knew it was something like a Galleon and a half or so. "We're nearly there. Do you like fish an' chips?"

"Of course!"

As much as my stepmother disapproves, especially since Grandfather's heart attack, I adore fish an' chips; fried to perfection, sprinkled with salt and coated in vinegar. It's apparently somewhat lower-class in Muggle terms, but then again, their _best_ things are lower-class. Like drinking that soda stuff out of those adorably crunchable aluminum cans. I find that fun. It's likely my favorite dinner, fish, chips, and soda …which is likely what the boys or Ginny told Charlie. He had done his research on me. The strange thing was, that sort of thing didn't seem creepy from him. Whenever guys had gone to the trouble of feeling me out with my friends beforehand, it had seemed vaguely stalker-y. With Charlie, it just seemed…logical.

We got off the bus at a stop on a busy street and Charlie had to point out how the crossing lights worked –and prevent me getting run over by a lorry. That's the only dodgy thing about Muggle London, the damn cars and lorries. Really, they're a mess. They smell funny, they go too fast, and if you don't put witty enough stickers on the back, they can get gremlins in. Horrible. I have ridden in one once or twice, but it never really made much sense –unless it could fly. That'd be neat. There was a fish an' chips restaurant just across a four-lane, and we had to stop on the midpoint and wait for the lights to change. That was interesting, especially considering Charlie and I had both run rather fast across. I was behind him and he got up on the midpoint first, and as I got there, he reached out and helped me jump up onto the curb of it -with both hands.

I don't need to go into the logistics of standing, out-of-breath, with both hands in each other's, on a very narrow midpoint, now, do I? He smelled rather nice, though. I'm fairly certain I still reeked of liquorice garrote-wire –after all, I still had the necklace on, a mistake I realized as we crossed the second half of the street.

Charlie ordered two fish an' chips to go. I felt kind of guilty not being able to offer to pay, but it occurred to me –I could ask him out somewhere and do all the paying, and not only would it balance things out, it would be an excuse to see him again. …If he wanted to go. If tonight went well. Oh, I was not good at this!

"We're almost there, Jessie," Charlie explained, ducking into the alley between the fish an' chips place and what looked like a kind of picture store. He held the white bag of dinner in his left hand and got the clipring out of his pocket with his right. "Can you connect us up?"

"Sure."

I don't know how I did it. Belts, after all, are very interestingly located. What I do know, my hands never shook that much before in my _life_.

In a few seconds, we were somewhere else. I opened my eyes-

All right! I will explain this properly. I am _terrified_, more or less, of Apparating. I Splinched my right foot two feet away from me the first time I tried it alone. Fortunately, it was in a Ministry-sponsored Apparation class and there were wizards right there to fix it, but it's still a scary thing. Even now, I usually shut my eyes.

Anyway…

I opened my eyes. We were next to the Thames and a convenient bench. Charlie unhooked the clipring and we were about to sit down to eat when he stopped me.

"Wait. Shut your eyes, Jessie."

I bit my lip and complied. After all, I had just opened them. Charlie set down the bag on the bench and put two hands on my shoulders. "Turn around, but don't open your eyes." I did, and he had me wait that way a second. He was close behind me, and I could feel how warm his hands were. I could even feel his breath near my left ear. "Okay…_now."_

I opened my eyes just as the biggest, most impressive clock in all of England, 'Big Ben,' the Muggles call it –struck nine. We were close enough to actually feel the vibrations of the huge, bass chimes, and the lighted face was bigger than the newly risen moon. I watched the minute hand move into place as the chimes sounded, unable to breathe from the sight of it.

I'd never seen it before at night, or as close, or with anyone even remotely like Charlie. And I'd definitely never done what I did as the last echoes of the chime died away.

I turned around and kissed him.


	7. A Doorknocker

Chapter Seven: A Doorknocker

I don't know what possessed me to do that. A long time has passed since that night, and I still wonder. Maybe it was just an impulsive display of affection for this dear, sweet, wonderful guy who seemed to understand every weird, crazy quirk I had –or maybe it was something I could write off as a deduction from common sense under 'teenage hormones.' Surely, considering the lack of anything even remotely hormonal during my actual teenage years, I could use the excuse a bit later, couldn't I? Besides, I was still a week shy of my birthday. I could act crazy if I wanted to…

"Jessie?"

I had pulled away fairly quickly after realizing –well, what I'd done. Charlie was looking at me as if he expected me to suddenly blush and run away into the night. I tried my best to control the blushing, but the running was out of the question. After all, fast as I'd done it, Charlie _had_ had the chance to kiss me back, and water was a good deal more solid than my knees felt at that moment.

"I…I…don't know why I did that."

Well, for articulate I'd give myself a four. For honest, though, I was getting good marks. Maybe that would do… "Dreadfully sorry -I mean, I don't normally, that is, I've never quite…"

Have you ever been in a situation that is so impossibly frustrating that your inner monologue totally fails you and you say the first bloody thing that pops into your bloody head, rational, appropriate or otherwise; thus either worsening the situation or making it go away as everyone laughs at you?

That happened to me right about then.

"So _that's_ kissing!"

I wished for the skies to open and lightning to strike me dead. No such luck. Charlie, however, let out a soft little sound, somewhere between a chortle and a sigh, and touched my hand.

"You'd never kissed anyone before?"

"Well, _no_. I mean…just that… -this is quite the odd evening." I wanted to look away. I wanted to turn around. Anything to not see those gently smiling, slightly confused, oh-so-beautiful eyes watching me any more. But the strange thing was, I couldn't. "I mean, no one's ever…" Words failed me and I gestured around at our surroundings. "Look at all this! It's all just so..."

"I _knew_ a big clock was just the thing. It's sweet, having something you care about so much and know so well."

"Like you and dragons."

"Well…" We sat down on the bench and got the food out of the bag. "Not quite. I can't make a dragon tick."

"Actually, I seem to recall Gred and Forge telling me about a certain early hatchling without a pulse and a certain researcher adapting a human _enervate_ charm to wee lizards on the spot."

"They told you about that?"

"Of course. They also told me about the time you got ahold of some Firewhiskey in fifth year and serenaded the poor Fat Lady with the fight songs of no less than nine different Quidditch teams."

"They told me about the time you locked yourself out of the Prefects' Bath and had to be rescued by Luna Lovegood."

"They…those…!" Charlie swallowed a bite of fish.

"Personally, I found it a bit implausible. Wouldn't you, of all people, have picked the lock?"

"I don't exactly carry my tools when I happen to be _naked_ and dripping!"

"Really?"

"If you _dare_ ask why not…"

"I simply _must_, after that..."

"No pockets."

And that is how I succeeded in proving that Muggle soda and sinuses do not mix. I thumped Charlie on the back a bit and handed him one of the napkins. He gave me the sweetest glare I had ever seen.

"I am sorely tempted to tickle you into submission, wench."

"Wench? _Wench? _This from the man who was kicked out of a bar in Tirgoviste for singing 'Puff the Magic Dragon' at the top of his lungs? And the naughty bits, no less? I didn't even know there _were_ naughty bits in that!"

"Of course. Bill wrote them. And it was a tavern, not a bar. There's a difference."

"Which is?"

"Taverns apparently have little hotel rooms on top."

"So that's where the stairs at the Hog's Head go…"

"When have you been to the Hog's Head?"

"Certain sundry components to a specific magical device are subject to incidental Ministry trading restrictions and applications for an exception have been denied due to bureaucratic inefficiency and/or suspicion due to previous associations between the Firm and another body, currently in opposition to the present administration." Would you believe Charlie stared at me? "If I say 'Dung Fletcher,' will you stop looking so startled?"

"You speak Fudgian."

"Fluently."

"I never knew."

"You never asked a question that could compromise the security of the Firm in relation to the code of politic neutrality demanded by standard economics and etiquette if sundry covert listeners were to report to higher authority."

"Stop that!"

"Your application for the cessation of bureaucratic banter has been received and transmitted to processing, pending validation. Care for a receipt?"

"I'll give you receipt, clock woman…"

"Bring it, dragon boy!"

And we chased each other around the park bench for a bit. The grass was a little bit wet, either with dew or because it's London and rains a lot, or…I don't know why, really. Anyway, when grass is wet, it's very hard not to slip.

Which I did.

Charlie helped me up and I shook myself off a bit, even though there really wasn't any grass on me that I could see. For some reason we were both laughing and then, for some other reason, Charlie started tickling me. I had not lived in close contact with his little brothers for six months for nothing, and nimble fingers have their arcane uses, so we basically wound up on the wet grass, tickling and laughing and generally behaving somewhat akin to monkeys. I loved every second of it.

Even when he kinda won.

Even though he kinda cheated.

Even if that kind of cheating was kind of fair, considering I did it first.

Even if kissing _is_ different after the fish n' chips.

We eventually made it back to the Leaky Cauldron, but only after Big Ben struck midnight. En route we startled the other three passengers of an almost empty Muggle double-decker when Charlie taught me the Naughty Bits he and Bill added to 'Puff the Magic Dragon,' 'Chudley Cannons Forever' and even the Ravenclaw Fight Song. Apparently the Chudley Cannon song's Naughty Bits make his brother Ron get all sniffy and offended and call people blaspheming gits. I, for one, was most astonished to discover the Ravenclaw Fight Song actually has more than four lines to it. After all, I'd spent most of the games either fixing Snitches or seeing how my fixed ones performed with Ian's old Omnioculars. The refrain I knew, and the first verse, but other than that, I was rather fuzzy. Charlie was nice enough not to do the eye-rolling and gasping most of my Quidditch-playing male friends and relatives engage in, which was refreshing, but he did insist on teaching the rest of it to me, and the Gryffindor one, which I think is easier. One thing I'll say for us Ravenclaws, we never send a drinking song to do a counterpoint madrigal's job. Showoff-y-ness has its' downside.

We also caught a bus in the wrong direction by accident, but that was okay. We walked back and got caught in a crowd of Muggles leaving a nightclub. Apparently Japanese Muggles like to sing a lot when they have had too much to drink. Their hotel was on the same side of London as Diagon Alley, so they caught the same bus as we did.

I don't think it was really fair of Charlie to teach _them_ the Naughty Bits of 'Puff the Magic Dragon,' really I don't. Funny, though.

After we got back to Diagon Alley, we headed for my shop, of course. Considering it was two in the morning, however, I had a brilliant idea to prevent the Wonder Twins from noticing my late arrival. You never know when they're going to be awake 'til all hours inventing a refrigerating tea-cozy or some other such mischief. We cut through the back nine behind Fortescue's to Knockturn Alley, which really wasn't hard, though Charlie seemed a lot more nervous than I was.

There's a pawn shop next to my place, owned by a set of triplets, which really isn't all that dodgy at all, apart from being a pawn shop. Dodginess tends to increase as one proceeds down Knockturn from Diagon and decrease in the reverse. Being a pawn shop, Redfern's is open twenty-four hours and has a rear entrance, in case the more socially affluent need a bit of financial assistance. I knew this because the back of my shop overlooked it. When I was an apprentice, I used to amuse myself by watching the comings and goings while I did the books at night.

The (supposedly,) richer and more prominent the customers are, the more hooded cloaks and such they wear. Ironically, noone ever thinks to change their shoes, and considering the doorknocker is set somewhat high, their sleeves usually fall back enough that I can see their watch. Watch and shoes is enough for a positive identification in my line of work. Uncle Gard reckons he saw Celestina Warbeck once when he was younger, and I know that was Rita Skeeter with the red-and-black polka dot wristband on her watch. Ludo Bagman doesn't even count as an anecdote anymore, more of an 'again?' The Redfern triplets were in Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, so I knew Sam, the middle one, fairly well.

I explained all of this to Charlie as we walked in the dark.

"So…the…er, middle one's called Sam?"

"Yeah. Ken, Sam and Mel. They're each ten minutes apart and look exactly alike."

"Let me guess, you can tell them apart?"

"Of course."

"Jessie…how _do_ you do that?"

"If I told you, I wouldn't be mysterious, now, would I?"

"You consider it normal to be knocking on a pawnshop door at two a.m., Jessie. There's a lot of 'mysterious' to go."

"Why aren't they answering?"

"Because normal humans like to sleep at this hour?"

"Is that sleep-deprived crankiness I hear?"

"No, this is talking-loudly-in-a-scary-place crankiness."

"Honest, Charlie, it's not that bad. I _live_ here, after all…"

"Jessie?" I heard one of the triplets whispering. "'Zat you?"

"Yeah. What is it?"

"Get in here!"

"…Okay."

Things were about to get much weirder.


	8. A Ladder

Chapter Eight: A Ladder

"I don't understand…"

"Neither did we at first." The Redferns have a wonderful knack of speaking in whispers exactly the way they did normally. They can be sarcastic or merry or anything, only hard to hear. I know for a fact that Fred and George can too, but it seemed to be unnerving Charlie a bit -or maybe that was something else…

"But then they started conjuring Dark Marks all over and painting these…" Sam gestured out the window at the pub on the corner. The glass front windows were smashed and something had been drawn, graffiti-style, with what looked a lot like Muggle spray-paint but might have been a particularly focused paint charm. The sounds of smashing glass and screams were echoing around the place. Every so often a black robe or a fleeing inhabitant would run past the Redferns' shop. The counter, behind which we were huddled, had mirrors on display above, and it was through those the triplets had been watching the nightmare outside. They were hiding fairly well, and thanks to some good warding, noone had broken their window and gotten in yet, but some painting showed through. Sam indicated the half showing through their window in the biggest mirror as she spoke. "It isn't the symbol of Austria, that much I know, and the head's off…"

"It's a decapitated phoenix," Charlie explained with a horrible steely note in his voice. Mel and Ken gasped. "They're attacking the shops of people who stand against You-Know-Who."

"Which is every odd shop down Knockturn," Ken explained. Charlie looked startled.

"You don't know the area…against the Ministry isn't always against the side of right," Mel smiled sheepishly. "Lots of the tradesmen are loyal to Dumbledore, even if not to Fudge-it -I mean, Fudge."

"Personally, I hate the ol' bastard," Ken remarked candidly, with a nervous grin.

"Keeps sending Aurors around the doors of the shop. Noone can sell a thing, and _forget_ buying, so business is down the loo…" Sam growled.

"But we'd _give_ the shop to the Headmaster if he needed it!"

"And the Dark Lord can 'ave the loo!" Ken joked, keeping up the brave façade fairly well, I thought. I could tell the Redferns were terrified. After all, so was I. But I knew a little of what to do…

"Have you an upstairs grate and some Floo powder?" I asked, still whispering. "The garret, perhaps? Where the street can't hear?"

"Of course! We use it for smutty love letters. People pay us to send them untraceably."

"Okay." They are a funny lot, even in the worst of times. "Ken and Sam, keep on with the shielding charms on your front window."

"Do you know another besides 'impervius'?" Charlie didn't need to think.

"Try 'incupricata.' It'll make them all shiny for awhile, but it should dent instead of break."

"Where th' hell are the Ministry?" Sam wondered aloud, her eyes narrowed in a manner that answered the question. The Ministry did _not_ like Knockturn Alley, and it was no secret. The illegal trades that had flourished for so long, and the ineffective laws against many things some wizards considered their right, well, it had all bred a kind of scoff-law attitude over the ages, particularly during Fudge's tenure in office. It's very easy for a bad Minister who can't catch You-Know-Who to distract the public by pointing at fellows like Dung Fletcher or declaring a war on crime. Uncle Gard has a splendid joke about a kind of American Muggle guy, like a Minister, who declared a war on crime, a war on drugs, a war on terrorism, and was working on a war on homosexuality when eight o'clock came and he had to stop and go eat dinner with family. There's a grain of truth in it, I'm not sure where, but that kind of mess certainly applies here, too. Fudge would declare the Enemy of Us All to be cockroaches if he thought it'd hold attention for long enough.

And if he wanted new taxes, he always had 'Knockturn Alley cleanup projects' to blame them on. Ministers had been using 'cleanups' as political giftwrap for decades. Just enough wizards were ignorant enough and frightened enough of Knockturn Alley to buy into that kind of rot.

Security had been jumped-up of late, but only to the point of slowing down business for the respectable trades there. That security was nowhere to be seen now, which meant it was more or less political posturing. Clearly, if Fudge couldn't bring Knockturn under his own control, he was not about to stop the Death Eaters from throwing a modern-day Kristallnacht. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had purposely looked away -or even aided the attack somehow. Anything was possible, given what the twins and Ginny had been telling me of late. And anyone who kept Dolores Umbridge in their employ was obviously a hand short of half-past two. In short, the Ministry were not going to help at all, not if Sam had the right of it.

Something else occurred to me just then.

"Mel, can you get a clear shot with a wand at my shop?"

"Of course."

"How about past it? Across the street?"

"Oh, you mean at-"

"Yes. Can you hit it?"

"Of course."

"Good. I want you to hit the front of that shop with the biggest, tackiest after-Christmas sale ad for yours that you can possibly manage." Charlie gave me a funny smile as I grinned. "The boys will know what we mean. After all…it's October."

"Then you two go owl or Floo or something…get us some help here!" Ken was beginning to look tense. "They're getting closer!"

"We will. Come on, Jess." In moments, we were halfway up the Redferns' spiral staircase. I could see flashes of light below through the grating of the steel steps, both from outside and from the triplets' warding spells. There was a bright glare of red for a split-second and the walls shook. The steps bucked beneath our feet and I felt a strong hand on my waist. I looked to my left and discovered I was even with Charlie's shirt buttons.

"Hold on," he muttered, hanging tightly to the center pole of the staircase with his right hand. His left, I realized, was holding just as tightly onto me. That thrice-damned camisole under that stupid slinky transparent excuse for a shirt was sliding ever-so-steadily upward, and a very inconvenient tingle was heading even faster up my spine. I caught hold of the center pole just a split-second before the steps started to fold on us. Charlie glanced down at me and I yelled something incoherent -not sure if I was saying 'run' or 'go' or 'damn,' but he headed up and I went with him and we jumped up onto the second floor just before the steps were gone. They had somehow spun down below us, like a screw, leaving only a bare pole with grooves in it. As we jumped, the stairs made a terrible screeching sound. I felt a horrible pain in my elbow as it hit the floorboards.

In retrospect, I think that elbows are the most painful place to land when falling. Your whole arm feels like it's been hexed with something illegal and no matter what you use to make it feel better, your arm aches for a day and a half afterward. It's awful.

And it makes you very irritable.

"What the _hell_, Sam?"

"It's a collapsible staircase, remember?"

"The spells from outside must've knocked it loose!"

The Redferns' is an odd place, really, speaking architecturally. The second and third floors have a kind of big central hole cut out, with railings, and normally a spiral staircase off to the left connects the three. That way, people on the top floors can see all that goes on below, which is neat, and the skylight lights up the whole place on summer afternoons. But it's also a real beast when the collapsible staircase –well, collapses.

"How do we get to the garret, then?"

"I know." Charlie pointed his wand at the edge of the ceiling above us and cast a spell I had never so much as heard of before. Vines shot out and upward with a flash of blue light, then tangled and twined into an odd, but unmistakable ladder.

"Brilliant!"

"Your new boy's got mad skills, Jessie."

I don't know what bothered me more, the phrase 'mad skills,' or the reference to Charlie as my 'new boy.' There was never an _old_ boy. And he was certainly not mine. Was he? No, one date did not possession constitute…crap, I was thinking in Fudgian. And the awful American slang was pretty bad, too.

"Jessie, can you climb that if I hold it still?"

"Sure."

I didn't know if I could climb the damn thing. My experience with ladders of any kind was limited to Trelawney's classroom and fixing the roof. But there were Death Eaters outside and the walls were shaking and it was all quite scary as the hexes lit the shop like a disco –well, actually, that bit was a little neat, but otherwise it was terrifying. So I thought nothing of how my tail end looked in those harlot jeans my idiot friends had all but sprayed onto my body, ignored my fear, and headed up the ropy, viny thing Charlie had conjured up.

The garret wasn't far away, only about ten feet above the second floor, and I'm about five and a half or six, so with a jump I had roughly four feet of climb and then I got within reach of the railing and could tug myself up from there. That hurt my elbow, too, but soon I was on the third floor.

"You need some help?" I called. We were yelling to be heard as the noise from outside grew deafening.

"There isn't time! Have you got the Floo powder?" I found a jar next to the grate.

"Yeah!"

"Okay! You want to get ahold of Kingsley Shacklebolt!"

"Okay!"

And what happened next kind of goes without saying. Mr. Shacklebolt just happened to be giving a dinner party at his flat for his old classmates, all of whom were, of course, Aurors, being classmates from wherever Aurors learn to _be_ Aurors and all –you get it, and they basically rescued the lot of us. I think it was ten Death Eaters arrested, and only three of the Knockturn Alley shopkeepers had injuries. I also think that Auror school or whatever must be a lot more fun than regular school, because they were all awake and still having the party at a little after three in the morning. Perhaps poker was involved.

The damage to the shops was quickly reversed, interestingly enough, with the aid of my twin best friends. Fred and George had been testing a new prank, shaped like an Easter egg, and designed after those Muggle balls of paint that can be fired from guns, only far more elaborate. One tosses the egg gently at any building, and it completely cleans and revamps the exterior, including the paint job, which it changes 'dramatically yet appropriately 9 times out of 10.' They had tested one on my shop, and the brick walls with cement edgework had been white painted lumber with forest green. It lasted for five minutes before I noticed and threatened them with cold cereal for dinner if they didn't fix it, but the Eggs were supposed to be more or less permanent if one liked the results.

The Spring Cleaning Easter Eggs worked beautifully, on eighteen out of the twenty affected shops. A bookstore specializing in occult texts, rare manuscripts and kinky pornography was suddenly fluorescent pink with silver glitter trim and a mirror ball. The pub next door liked this scheme and would happily have swapped, as they got a splendidly unfortunate black-on-white cow pattern for their exterior, but the Eggs always have that element of mischievous chance. One is either doing an entire spring cleaning, or turning one's house into a hideous discotheque. I only wish they'd come up with them sooner and loosed a box in Umbridge's office. Take _that_, schmaltzy kitten plates.

And the good news was, the boys were so pleased at the chance to really road-test the Easter Eggs, they completely missed the fact that their big brother and best (girl) friend had been together at three in the morning. It was pointless to go to bed, so I started breakfast while Charlie and the twins finished Egg-ing the Knockturn shops. (Altogether, I suspect they accomplished more than about ten Ministry cleanup projects ever could. The Eggs tend to do happy colors, as opposed to the pervading gloom Knockturn used to have.) I was making ordinary eggs both scrambled for Fred and poached like George likes, stripy bacon, and cinnamon rolls with nuts on when the three Weasleys came trooping in.

"That was bloody brilliant on Nooke's, you know. Can you pick which Egg does what?"

"Well, _we_ can."

"But where would the joke be if we did?" Fred stopped mid-grin and sniffed. "Oh, to have had five sisters who cook instead of six brothers with rotting Quidditch socks of a morning…"

"Oi! Ginny cooks," Charlie defended.

"Yes, but we can actually eat Jessie's…merciful mother of Merlin, you're making-"

"Get _away_ from the icing or you'll be eating it through your _left_ nostril. Set the table, what?"

"_'How fierce the mama tigress, thus we find the sister raven.'_" Fred picked up a stack of slightly chipped plates while George began setting out mismatched silverware.

"Did you just quote bad poetry at me, Gred Weasley?"

"You _know_ I'm Forge, Jessie."

"Are not. You're Fred."

"How _does_ she do that?" Charlie inquired.

"Sodded if I know," Gred –I mean, Forge –dammit…George observed. "If our own Mum didn't mix us up, I'd assume it was a female thing."

"By the way," Charlie seemed to recall something. "Those Redfern triplets…"

"Yes?"

"Ken, Sam and Mel?" Charlie asked, a little accusingly.

"Kendra, Samantha and Melanie," I explained mildly. "They're good friends of mine."

"I just rather expected…well…"

"Guys?"

"They keep threatening to go on the cover of Witch Weekly with her for a story on girl tradesmen with masculine nicknames-"

"But we suspect it's a joke…"

"Well…and their hair's all different colors." Charlie looked confused.

"Oh, yeah. They trade 'em around a bit," I explained.

"…_What?"_

"They're…y'know, like that Tonks girl, the Auror? They switch their haircolors around and sometimes they do whole different faces. Helps with their job."

"But then how is it you tell _them_ apart? Must be tricky enough with these two, if those three switch…"

"It's nothing to do with faces." I smiled over my shoulder, then turned around with a pan in one hand and a spatula in the other. I find men listen better when you've got food in your hands. "Let me guess. Scrambled for Gred, poached for Forge…Charlie?"

"I've never been able to decide on a preference."

"Really?"

Fred shook his head in disapproval and George let out a sigh:

"Something terribly indecisive about a fellow what can't tell how he likes his eggs."

"Drives Mum mental."

"How can eggs…?"

"Every year on birthdays she makes breakfast just how the one likes it,"

"Which _is_ a blessing, we only have to endure eggs with kippers once annually,"

"Which is _still_ too much,"

"But Charlie's never been able to lock it in."

"Every year she up and tries something different."

"And he likes them all."

"If he were as un-picky about women as about eggs, we'd have nephews of our own to corrupt, 'stead of waiting on Percy and What's-her-head,"

"And Bill's French one –the human pastry."

"Human _pastry?"_ Charlie looked confused. "But Fleur's really not-"

"We mean pastry as in sweet and edible, not coated in icing and served on a plate-"

"Not that Bill'd object-"

"Guys, there is a lady present. Or have you forgot?"

I felt three things at that moment. One was my own upper teeth biting hard into my lower lip. Thank the deities I had turned back around, away from the table. Another was a weird little girly tingle I blamed on hormones and novelty after being 'one of the guys' since…well, ever.

And the third was the burner against the side of my hand. I am a bit clumsy anyway, and being startled doesn't help matters much. At least none of the guys noticed it. Fred and George were too busy first commenting on how much Charlie sounded like their dad, then accusing him of fancying their triplet, and generally forgetting completely the fact that I can, in fact, hear. If it didn't occasionally come in handy, I'd cut them a new spring for that little tendency. 'And it's not hard to understand,' I thought.. 'The table's a good five feet from the stove and partly around a corner…

'Wait a minute. Charlie defended me. Wow. Maybe I shouldn't be so okay with the boys forgetting I'm there. They don't do it often, only when he's there…wow. Charlie defended me. A lady present…and he meant me…'

This and other similarly idiotic thoughts were what both prevented the fairly large burn on my hand from hurting as I finished the eggs and let me forget that Fred and George tend to _notice_ huge swelling welts when they appear, as do many sensible humans. So, like a dizzy-headed, crush-befuddled fourth-year idiot, I started bringing hot dishes in.

"Jessie!"

"Your hand!"

"What'd you do?"

"Oh. I –uh, must've burned it worse'n I thought. Stupid pan has a wonky handle…"

"Let me." Charlie turned my mistreated paw over, supporting the wrist with one of his very strong, very warm, disturbingly trembly-up-the-spine-inducing hands, and looked at the burn.

Words cannot describe the gut-flutteries which ensued from this. After all, Charlie knows a lot about burns. And for all he's got so many scars and such a dangerous career and all, he's really very gentle and meticulous sometimes…okay, he was looking at my hand, careful and concerned, like Granddad looks at a broken watch or something, only…well…kind of more so, like Granddad would look at a broken watch he really really cared about, or…

Oh, sod it. The hot guy was taking care of me. I was a nervous wreck and altogether inappropriately fascinated at the same time. _You_ try it and see what you get. Gut-flutteries. Right little mess I was in.

"Fred, would you get us the burn salve?"

"Sure. Where is it?" Charlie looked at me. I managed to get out:

"Back of the fridge someplace. One of the shelves, some kind of plasticware…"

"And George, I need some gauze, or really clean handkerchiefs, and tape if you can find it."

"Be right back. Jess, you keep the medical kit in the upstairs closet, right?"

"…Yeah."

And just like that, we were as alone as we could possibly be. Fred was halfway _in_ the fridge, doing the rummage thing, and George was thumping up the stairs. Charlie leaned a little closer, and not just to look at my hand.

"This is rather a rotten burn, Miss Tickes. Does it hurt?"

"Not that badly. I just sort of brushed it…"

"I'll have it better in no time." Charlie promised, laying a gentle kiss on my palm an inch or two from the swelling mark, then whispered: "Not much of a goodnight kiss, is it? Permission herewith filed to remedy said ineffectuality?"

Merciful gods and goddesses playing chess with pet cats! Charlie made bureaucratese sound sexy! The gut-flutteries were going absolutely bonkers and my cheeks were red as –well, dashed red, and I couldn't think of a damn thing to say and it was all so sweet and awkward and…

And I really didn't have to say anything at all, in the end. He didn't exactly wait for an answer like a bureaucrat, if you take my meaning.

And yes, it _was_ wonderful.

And no, we did _not_ get caught.

-Well, not _then_, anyway.

And that was how my first date with Charlie Weasley turned out.


	9. A Necklace

Chapter Nine: A Necklace

I don't know why he makes me feel that way. He's just a guy. Another guy. And yes, he's a deliciously dishy redheaded guy –but there's a whole model line of them. And yes, he's unique in his interests and personality –but there are a thousand million other guys who may have similar traits…and yes, he's brilliant and clever and friendly and just so impossibly _wonderful…_

But he's _just_ a _guy_.

I must not lose sight of things.

I will _not_ fall in love.

I am Ms. Jamesina Worthing Tickes, clocksmith. I am not the future Mrs. –I am not _a_ future Mrs., let alone…

Oh, lord.

I thought it.

I thought it in my head. Not out loud. And I certainly didn't write it down, not even to see how it would look.

And it was only a first date, I'd be silly to jump to that conclusion…

Good lord. _First_. As in, initial. Inaugural. First in a _series_. Flagship date of the Charlie Weasley Date _Fleet!_ A sodding air force of dates! A calendar! A slew! A metric messload!

And mercy upon me, I _like_ the idea!

That, or something like it, was my train of thought for roughly two hours after Charlie fixed up the burn on my hand. It was derailed a few times, such as when Fred noticed I had forgotten to make toast. Charlie showed us all a lovely charm that makes you breathe magical fire, which, being magical, doesn't burn your nosehair out or anything dangerous, just feels warm for a second. He and the magizoologist crowd use it to make dragons go 'whoa, look at that, who shagged a human?' for a second while another magizoologist jabs the dragon in the opposite end with the immunization it needs. It's also a splendid, if vaguely show-offy method of making toast. So the twins made toast for each other, which was fine, but which rapidly turned icky after I absently inquired about what happened to bogies and such when one did the spell. Nice to know a new decongestant charm, I guess. One can never have too many in cold season.

There was also the conversation we had about what the Death Eaters had been playing at by attacking the Knockturn shops. Apparently, the whole thing had been the work of just three wizards.

"Only three?" Fred looked surprised. "Took us almost two dozen Eggs to fix that mess, and it was just the three?"

"Well, just the three were caught, and they seem to have been responsible." Charlie had just stepped into the other room to answer a Floo. "Of course, two of the three were Crabbe and Goyle –senior, not the pair in Hogwarts, and the third was some cousin of either –or perhaps both, they seem an inbred lot, who was in from Ireland."

"Well, I feel personally offended that the Crabbes and Goyles have cousins in Ireland."

"Why, Jessie!" George seemed surprised. I don't normally say things so vehemently. I just think them. "Have _you_ got cousins in Ireland?"

"My mother was Irish."

What? It's true. She _was_. The prejudice against Irish couldn't run as deep as all that, could it?

"Oh. Well, that explains a bit." Fred said it so smugly, I felt the need to bristle on principle.

"Explains _what?"_

"Well, your accent, for one. You sound a little bit…well, actually, you sound a bit Scottish as well as the Londoner."

"I grew up here and the house in Hogsmeade. No surprise. What's Irish about me?"

"Well…more about your brother."

Oh. Ian.

"He turned down the Wimbourne Wasps and about six other teams, holding out for Ireland. They never did recruit him, so he took England National." George said it as if it were perfectly obvious instead of perfect gibberish.

"That takes a lot of sand. I mean, sure, Ireland took the Cup last one, but there's loads of other countries who wanted him."

"Really?"

"Jessie, where _were_ you when your brother left school?"

I had to think for a second.

"I think I was reading up to be a first-year. Why?"

The double sigh of Fred an' George resounded yet again. What's with that?

"You had no interest _whatsoever_ in which _national_ team your big brother was to play for?"

"Well, I was _maybe_ eleven years old, guys…" A memory stirred. "No, wait. I did have an interest. I told him not to pick the yellow and black team because I found the jerseys ugly and didn't want to have to wear their colors, even to support him."

They stared.

"Oh, and the fellow who came by the shop with the contract was really a git."

They stared some more. Then Charlie spoke up.

"Was he a bit stupid-looking, starting a gut, and getting thin up top?"

"Yeah. And he tried to bet Uncle Gard that the Tornados would beat the Wasps. Obnoxious lout, only I wasn't old enough to say so."

"Merciful peace, Jess!"

That was an odd one. I though 'merciful peace' was my grandfather's and my personal cuss-phrase. The twins' borrowing it in unison made me smile. Their shock was also amusing.

"That was Ludo Bagman!" I snapped my fingers, remembering.

"That's him! He keeps pawning stuff at Redfern's and trying to gaslight the prices up. Shabby git."

"Shabby git? He was betting against his own team!"

"I bet he threw those matches!"

"Oh. …Sorta explains why Uncle Gard didn't take the bet, then, eh?"

"Jessie, that's _criminal!"_

"Not that we're _surprised_, mind you."

"But _throwing matches…"_

"That's low,"

"Even for _him_."

"Wait. Throwing matches?" I must have looked pretty stern, because their twin faces lit up like, perhaps, just maybe, some of the Quidditch had soaked into my female brain. "Like, lighted ones? At people?"

Fred smacked himself in the forehead. George let out an almighty groan and beat his heart with a fist.

"Why, Jessie…_why?"_

"Oh, get on! It was a joke!"

"I need to go and cuddle my Beater bat after that…"

"I need to go tell the portrait of Dai Llewellyn that you're just a girl and don't know any better." Both twins got up. Charlie gave them a look and George smiled. "Relax, that's a joke as well. I'm getting some butterbeer from our shop, and Fred needs the loo."

"Oi! How do you always know that?"

"Right on schedule. Could set one of Jessie's clocks by our bladders, mate." They headed off, having a kind of miniature row about capacity for –well, yuck. They are guys, after all, and sometimes they leave a bit to be desired conversationally. I said as much to Charlie.

"Yeah. Still, it explains a bit why you three hang around so much."

"True. What's really fun, though, is when Fred and I make George feel an idiot about music, or George and I try to get Fred with books. My particular idiocy happens to be sport, but then, you could likely tell…"

"It's sweet. Though you can't be as dim as you pretend, talking Ian Tickes out of the Wimbourne Wasps…_that_ was a stroke of divine luck for England…"

"I still have an odd time with people saying 'Ian Tickes' like they say 'Josef Wronski' or 'Celestina Warbeck' or 'Cornelius Fudge' –well, without the sneering there… to me, he's just my big brother. You all think of him as the Quidditch Gods' gift to Ravenclaw and the savior of England National. I think of him as the tall fellow who taught me to peel oranges and tie my shoes and who leaves his socks about." I shrugged. "Sounds silly, eh?"

"Actually, I can understand perfectly." Charlie picked up the coffee pot and refilled both of our cups. "I can remember coming home for Christmas once a few years ago. Everyone in the world says 'Harry Potter' like they say 'Albus Dumbledore' or 'Gilderoy Lockhart' –well, without the snorting there…and there was a picture of a skinny kid in specs with my littlest brother on the mantelpiece. Just another friend of a sibling, you know? I've known lots of them. And then I _met_ him…he really _is_ on the ordinary side, to look at and talk to. Bit stressed, lately, and very good Seeker, but nothing super-amazing. Nowadays I listen to the wireless, hear the name, and I think 'he wore the _shabbiest_ trainers last I saw him.' It's odd, knowing someone famous. Being related must be even odder, but I understand."

"Know what's really odd?" I wheeled my chair over to the cabinets with a shove. All the 'kitchen' chairs are what most people think of as 'office' chairs, incidentally, with wheels and swivels and tilty backs. "Working on projects for famous people. I've just about done with the watch for 'Cousin Sedrick,' and tonight I start on the watches for your tall uncle with the beard and your grandfather with the half-glasses. But I'm also putting the touches on this one." I took out a silver pocket model with a glittering chain and handed it to Charlie.

"It's the stag watch…what happened –what did you do to it?"

"The works. New plating, new movement, new hands, and I reground the crystal. It's three-fifths or so new."

"It looks it." Charlie opened the case and looked at the engraving within. "Wasn't originally from your shop, right?"

"Right. I owled Grandfather, and he seems to think Mrs. Potter found it at a Muggle shop."

"And liked it because of the stag."

"Very appropriate, according to Hermione. I owled her about it -sworn to secrecy, of course, and her reply had all spots on it like she'd had a bit of a cry…though if my friend was in his place and I heard about same manner of situation, I'd react much the same, I guess." It really wasn't a bad watch, just Muggle to start, and now it was practically as interesting as Dumbledore's fancy one. I glanced at it as I hung it in the cabinet and noticed, oddly enough, the time. "We haven't been to bed all night and it's close on ten."

"No, we haven't. And where does the very exact Miss Tickes suddenly get the phrase 'close on ten'? Why not nine-forty-six and-" Charlie looked at my wrist, "twenty-nine seconds?"

"Because…I'm sleepy and fuzzy-headed?"

"Must be." I felt a warm hand gently touch my own. "You look like you haven't slept in days, not hours."

"Well…wait. It _has_ been days." I looked at the second watch up from my left hand, which has a red mark hand. "I woke up at five day before yesterday, worked through the night, and then I stayed up for the day, went out, and the mess at Knockturn kept me up even longer…I must look a right mess."

"Nope. Bit dark under the eyes, but it's charming."

"I always have a bit dark under the eyes. So does my grandfather."

"Well, do you get enough sleep?"

"Define 'enough.'"

"Eight to nine hours."

"Per week?" I smiled.

"Jessie…you're going to make yourself ill."

"I suppose you got nine hours sleep a night working with the dragons, eh?"

"Actually, it was more like ten. Dragons are very diurnal creatures, well, at least the species we were monitoring. It was lights out for all when the sun went down."

"Well, the shop opens at –merciful peace!"

"Jamesina Worthing Tickes! The world will not pop a mainspring if the shop doesn't open on schedule for one day!" Charlie playfully pulled me back from the direction I had been about to head in, and then slowly closer. Much closer.

And then I found myself quite abruptly and smoothly swept off of my feet. Literally.

"What are you –put me down!"

"I thoroughly intend to." Charlie started walking, quite coolly, toward the stairs. I clasped my arms around his neck –purely out of fear for balance, you understand. "In bed."

"You…" I looked up at him. He looked determined –and _darling_. What _could_ I say? "You don't have to carry me."

"As if I could command you." He said it softly, and I could feel my cheeks going even redder. "I might have threatened to hide the pliers or something, but you'd have stood up to me. So I took standing out of the equation."

Uncharacteristic boldness seized me as we neared the door of my room.

"I find I am sorely tempted to suggest something improper, Mr. Weasley."

"And I am sorely tempted to wonder what sort of something. You're quite the fascinating creature, you know."

"Well…" I bit my lip nervously. "New as I am to it, it seems to me that I rather like kissing you."

"Funny, I felt the same way about you."

"You do realize this is not how the boys should catch us, though."

"Of course not." Charlie let me down gently to the floor. "Though I would be very fascinated by their reaction to me carrying their adorable false triplet up the stairs to almost certain impropriety."

"I'd likely find their looks of shock hilarious. They throw absolute fits of teenage boy-ism when I so much as accept a date…"

"They see you as an inexperienced teenage girl, the same as they, although I get the strong impression they have more experience, however slight. They think of you the same way they think of Ginny."

"So if they were to catch me…holding your hand…it'd be very weird."

"For them. And if they caught me…standing close to you…they'd think I was some kind of cradle-robbing incestuous pervert or something, at least for a moment." Charlie suddenly crinkled an eyebrow. "I do feel silly to ask, but just how old are you?"

"I'll be twenty in a week or so. The twins' age, more or less." _Was_ that cradle-robbing? Just _how_ old was…

"I'm younger than your brother."

"Then I guess…Gred and Forge are unfounded in their hypothetical accusations of cradle-robbing."

"And close as you are to them…" Charlie brushed a lock of hair out of my face and looked at it, "I don't think there's any chance of the incestuous theory being true."

"So as long as they don't find out…"

"At least until they're ready to take it…"

"Or…until we decide what 'it' is…"

"It…I like you."

"I…like you, too."

"Not to seem childish, but I do mean _like_ like."

"…I do, too."

I think a girl could get used to that delicious shivery-spine feeling.

"So now, Miss Tickes, I think it best that you and I retire to our respective bedchambers, yours within the hall of your ancestors and mine within the attic of my little brothers' shop-"

"Wait. You're living with them?"

"Yes, actually. I was having a hard time working at home, what with Mum's latest redecoration project and all, plus…the whole mess, y'know, and the boys decided I could stay with them if I kept the shop open while they do research an' development stuff. Three can run a place better than two, is the theory…and garrets are traditional places to keep writers, you know."

"Wow." Across the street! A bottle's throw from me… "I think I'd best run by the market this afternoon, then."

"Why?"

"Because I'm cooking for four, not three."

"You don't have to cook for all of us!"

"Charlie, does it never occur to you that I _like_ cooking?" I wasn't raising my voice, but I did have a point to make. "Three can run a place better than two, right? So three can run two places better than me by myself. We don't interfere in each other's shops, the twins and I, but it's dashed lonely not having them around for meals and what social lives we've got."

"Oh, I can see that," the darling dragon-man replied. "I think that's mostly why they stick around, too. Even twins can get lonely for someone besides their own double. I just meant that you don't have to do _all_ the cooking _all_ the time. You must get sick of it now and then."

"Well…who doesn't?"

"I learned how to barbecue not too long ago…"

"Not with the dragons!"

"No, though that's not a bad idea… one of the American wizards had a grill set up for one of the picnics we had to celebrate the new hatching. Involves a lot of brushing sauces on and turning the meats over. I bet we could find a Muggle grill at a charity shop, set it up on the twins' back walk, or yours…"

"That would be great. But I still need to get to the market. We're nearly out of milk and forget eggs…plus there's a special on zucchini."

"Zucchini?"

"Some witch in line at the grocery told me how to fry it. It's delicious. And I was thinking of going into Muggle London again, for cola and crisps."

"Those things are horribly bad for you."

"I _know_. Aren't they good?"

"Mum _never_ lets us have them. They're great. If it wasn't for Dad, we'd never have gotten anything Muggle but chewable vitamins."

"What are you doing up here?" Fred asked, coming up the stairs. George was behind him.

"Discussing dinner," I explained coolly. "Oh, and I was going to show Charlie the widow's walk, where the railing's gone funny. If I let you two fix it, it'd be electric pink and covered in Umbridge kittens by the time I'd turned twice."

I couldn't believe myself. I never lied that well! Charlie gave me a wonderfully conspiratorial wink and I felt myself grinning.

"You know the Muggles call it a wives' walk?"

"Yes. Actually, that's because of a witch who married a Muggle sea captain. She insisted their house must have one, but she was on the superstitious side –didn't want to so much as say the word 'widow.' He was in the War of 1812, but the superstition worked. She died almost three years before he did, at the age of eighty-four. The house set a fashion for the Victorians and they all assumed that was the proper name for them."

"How do you spit out so much useless trivia and still have room for gears and mainsprings?"

"Grandfather's been 'spitting out' said supposedly useless trivia since he was my age. It's history. You know, that stuff Binns was meant to be teaching us?"

"Well, if Binns told us about prostitutes aiding in the war against Grindelwald, I'd have stayed awake loads more."

"And what is this?" Charlie looked interested. I sighed.

"Why is that always your favorite? Okay, once upon a time, there was a really spectacular businesswoman who owned many of London and Hogsmeade's best-reputed brothels. She was very clever and very mischievous, and she organized the ladies of the evening in her employ into one of the best spy forces in the history of the history. Every time one of old Grindelwald's boys came by for a night of fun, they'd slip him something to loosen his tongue a bit, then report straight to the Light command with the who, what and where of everything the Dark lot planned." I paused, both blushing and enjoying the reaction of my audience. I'd told Fred and George the old thing at least a thousand times, but Charlie'd never heard anything like it, judging by his face. "The Ministry still insists it never happened, but I defy you to find a single Ministry injunction against the madam _or_ her descendants." Fred and George were smirking and Charlie looked a little shocked. "That's how Grandfather always told it, more or less, only he used to name names and describe every –well, he seemed to know the _ladies'_ history pretty well."

"Why don't you, then?" Fred cried.

"Because I don't remember all the details right. It's dashed confusing trying to keep up with Grandfather's 'Interesting History of Diagon Alley.' Even worse'n Binns' boring one."

"There's a book I'd like to read," Charlie observed. He still looked a tad bit gobsmacked that I knew stories like that.

"Me, too. If we could talk him into writing it down…"

"Or telling you. You could write it."

"Right. I can't get it together to tell a single essay without the words 'I digress' every three paragraphs. S'why Per'fessor Snape hated my guts so bad in school."

"I thought he hated everyone's guts," George remarked.

"Or perhaps just the perambulating, homework-bodging containers in which we all _kept_ the guts," I replied.

"Which is to say he hated us," Fred finished. "Sounds right."

"I'm not so sure he hated us, actually." I gave him my best snobby smirk. "Hated _you_, maybe, but then, you lot were Gryffindors."

"Wonky Ravenclaw girls. Now I know why we never dated any."

"I thought that was because you were too busy 'discussing team strategy' with Angelina and Katie." Yes, I can be a bit bitchy, too, sometimes. Isn't it fun? "All that talk about trying to score with them, that was Quidditch, eh?" They went red. I smirked. I love being a girl and getting away with stuff. Of course, this was almost the first time I'd ever done it, but an hour or two with Ginny can teach you a lot. "So, Charlie, want to check out that railing?"

"Sure." I led him up the stairs and out the window from my attic room. Yeah, out the window. It's not so hard, if you're flexible.

"Sorry to go all she-cat down there…felt like they were going to play the accusing game again."

"It's a poor cat who doesn't use claws when she's cornered." He came close behind me and wrapped his arms across my collarbone. I could feel warm breath on my cheek. "I'm impressed –and not just with the view up here."

I had a sneaking feeling he was _not_ talking about the roofs and chimneys.

"I know I was supposed to go to bed, but I feel so awake now…"

"_Is_ there anything wrong with the railing?"

"I mentioned it twice last week and then fixed it myself in about ten minutes."

"Oh."

"I used a coat hanger. Wrapped it around the break, then Transfigured it to wrought iron, then used a welding charm. It'll be a bit shinier than the rest of it for a while, but it should hold."

"Clever clock woman." Charlie kissed the side of my neck, which touched off a whole line of reactions somewhere between my spine and my ears. I felt my back arch like a stroked cat and suddenly I was incredibly aware of the warmth of his arms. "You smell delicious…like…licorice and mint…"

"Oh, crap…"

"What?"

"It's my necklace…I was…well…you've met your sister, right? –oh, damn…"

"I get the feeling this is one of your better explanations."

"Yes… Well, I was very nervous about going out with a dishy –with a hot –I can't win here! With you! And Ginny and Hermione showed up and helped me get ready with a whole pack of other girls."

"…What's with the female gender and the pack response?"

"Don't ask me!"

"Dragons do that, too, you know. Go on."

"Well, we were killing time, and we had some candy…so we made necklaces and bracelets and…we were playing like stupid nits and I completely forgot I had a bit of confectionery tied around my neck like a five-year-old."

"Ah." Charlie kissed my neck again. "You're blushing all over."

"An unfortunate side effect of being a total absentmind, blushing."

"It's adorable. And you're not an absentmind. You've just got better to think about. And I…" I felt a scandalously naughty tickling and nibbling, "am going to eat this …treat, right …off …your neck."

"This…we shouldn't be…"

"Giving new definition to 'necking'? Why not?"

"I…don't know. But…oh, _hell."_

I turned around in his arms and kissed him back. He tasted deliciously, naughtily of licorice with a sweet, cold minty aftertaste. It was minutes, or perhaps eons, I forget, before I realized we were devouring each other like dessert. There was something wrong in all of it, but there was also something right.

And it was nine that night before I got to bed.


	10. A Name

Chapter Ten: A Name

Now, just because I am a woman of means does not mean I have an unlimited budget. I don't think. Generally, I made about two hundred Galleons a day on new products and repairs, less about forty for materials and such, which left me with about a hundred and sixty Galleons of profit. Now, I divided this in half and deposited eighty into the shop account for the Diagon Alley establishment. This would cover any shop expenses like roof repairs, local property taxes or the like. It was a fairly fat account, needless to say, though it was still recovering from the improvements my great-grandmother had instituted when Ian and I were babies.

Then I split the remaining eighty, my share, rather drastically. I deposited at least three-quarters of it and usually more, leaving me with usually between ten and twenty Galleons for living expenses and miscellaneous. (I write the amounts down, but other than that, I just keep what I expect to need.) Of course, I only went to the bank about one day a week, so the amounts I handled at the time were roughly the above multiplied by seven. So perhaps I really was wealthy at the time after all…it depends on your standard and how aware of money you are. It seems that I'm really not, except in what I need to do with it. Other than expenses and the occasional goal-I-save-up-for, I don't even think about money much.

And yes, I can live quite well on ten Galleons a day. I actually manage it on more like five, closer to three. Doing my own cooking, buying sensible things... I lived very comfortably and almost never spent my whole day's budget –unless, of course, I wound up buying special-project materials or new robes or something. After all, thrifty or not, sometimes a girl just needs to go shopping.

The Sunday after the Death Eater attack on Knockturn Alley was just such a day. I wanted to get a really good roast for dinner, or else chicken or something just…well, something splendid. I also felt like niffling around some shops I _hadn't_ been in each week since I was four and perhaps finding some new ideas. I get those in the very oddest places. So naturally, after depositing the week's take at Gringotts, I asked Griphook to change ten Galleons for me.

Honestly, if a wizard really wanted to make a killing, they'd do it in currency laundering. The exchange rate is really splendid for English Muggle money, and if you turn English Muggle into American and then Egyptian Muggle and back to Galleons, so Bill tells the twins, there is about a twenty percent gain. I think that's how he's financing dates with Fleur.

Armed with fifty pounds (which, incidentally, does not weigh anything close to that, it's paper and lighter than Galleons by a long shot,) and a black umbrella, since I'd gone without robes, I thus headed into Muggle London. It was abysmal weather, which is to say, normal out, and I decided to take an omnibus. I like them.

Well, weirdly enough, I noticed a man from the Ministry two stops after I got on. He was dressed in a suitable suit, I guess, to pass among Muggles, though I wouldn't have chosen lime green, were I on a trip. I might not have noticed him as a wizard if not for the fact that one, his hat still had the water-repelling charm on and was noticeably dry, and two, there was a wand in his vest pocket. 'Really, what a cabbagewit,' I remember thinking. 'That's what a watchband's good for.'

He looked quite uncomfortable on the bus and hastily sat down, only to be joined one stop later by another bowler hat –this one lavender. I _don't_ think Muggles wear bowler hats in colors brighter than blue, but I wouldn't know. Anyway, they were only about two rows ahead of me and the 'bus was near empty, so I could clearly hear what they were on about.

Perhaps it helped that I had chosen to dress in real, authentic Muggle clothes. Uncle Gard left them at the shop after his apprenticeship and he'd said I could have them. I don't think fashion changes much in a decade or two, not for Muggles. I had also let my hair down –well, had to, really as I misplaced the tie for it, and I had a bit of the lipgloss Parvati recommended on.

Maybe that was why the two blokes in the bowler hats completely missed me.

"You're certain Shacklebolt is disloyal, then?" the lavender asked the lime.

_What?_

"Unquestionably. He and several friends personally attended to the affair. And what's worse –it was Weasleys who called him to."

Words cannot describe what I felt at that moment. Well, then again, maybe words can, but you're going to find said words on page twenty-six of a bad spy novel. I had to get closer.

"Weasleys! Honestly, I wonder how you can keep the father in. The middle son seems alright, but other than that…"

"How can I possibly get rid of him without it looking funny? Especially when he got bit by that great dirty snake a year ago…and he _is_ a hard worker."

"And a Muggle-lover. His twins are no better. Their shop's practically a headquarters for Potterists."

"Heavens, there's a word for them? It's as bad as all that?"

"And what's worse, they're corrupting the local shopkeepers."

"How do you mean?"

"Malkin's been outsourcing a line of t-shirts for teenagers to them, Fortescue stocks their moving toppings and colour-flavour changing ice cream sauce…and then there's the youngest Tickes. The girl."

"Not _quite_ the youngest, I hear, since Jim remarried. The Tickes are a fine old family, though. They've had their shop since before the War with-"

"I'm thoroughly aware of how far they have fallen, Cornelius. If it wasn't bad enough with Ian Tickes marrying that mad Jamesina Switch, it was the most recent James and that mick Mudblood. What was her name? Siobhan?"

"I don't know, Mutius, I rather liked the McArran girl. And Jim was so happy…it really wasn't fair –what happened…"

"Mudbloods die as Mudbloods live."

It was at this moment, directly after I took the pliers out of my pocket and just prior to what would have been a very creative assassination attempt on the Minister of Magic and his lavender-wearing mate, that the most brilliant witch in a century entered the 'bus.

To her credit, she is also a Muggleborn.

"Why, Minister Fudge!" Hermione cried, in the by-god finest imitation of Percy Weasley I have seen since the prefect himself, shaking Fudge's hand and raising a brow at me. "How splendid to see you here! But I do hope the-" she theatrically scanned for Muggles and I slouched out of sight, "the Floo isn't malfunctioning?"

"Oh-er, no, m'dear. My –er, the Minister of –Bulgaria was interested in seeing the Muggle city. I do believe that is our stop coming up…"

"Dobro ootro," Hermione remarked. Fudge looked startled.

"…_What_ was that?"

"Just wishing the Minister 'good morning.' Ahz neh govoryah mnogo bilgahrskee."

The lavender-hatted fellow nodded and mumbled incoherently for a second before Fudge bundled him off with a nervously cheerful goodbye to Hermione, who watched them go and then snorted.

"Bulgarian Minister my _foot_. Everyone and their _cat_ knows the Minister of Bulgaria is Vladimir Norochevik and he's only five-foot-two. How stupid do they think I am, Jessie?"

"Those _fucking bastards!"_

"Ah." Hermione has a distinct way of putting whole paragraphs into her disgusted 'ah's. "What was it, Jess?" I didn't answer. I was too busy pointing my wand at the two men out the bus window. "Jessie! Are you insane? That's the Minister of Magic and-"

"And a _sonofabitch_"

"What did you _do?"_

"I _stopped_ both of their watches!" I raved furiously. "They are both going to be _very_ late for…for the rest of their _lives!"_

I think it was a little unflattering that she burst into giggles then.

"Only you, Jessie. But seriously, what did you overhear?"

I repeated it, still shaking with fury. "Wasn't even sure what my mother's name was before he called her…a mick Mudblood!"

"Your mother was Muggleborn?"

_"Yes!"_

"I hadn't even heard that. And I thought she was that tallish woman with your Dad at graduation-"

"That's my stepmother. She isn't _old_ enough to be my mother."

"Well, she did seem a bit young…"

"A bit? Try ten years older than me. Not even thirty yet." I breathed and tried to calm down a bit. Hermione sat down with me as the bus moved toward Trafalgar. "She's nice, though, never tried to make Ian and me call her 'Mum' or anything. But my mother…well, she died when I was quite little."

"Wait a moment…was her name-"

"Siobhan McArran Tickes. _Yes_. _That_ one. Since you up and memorized the whole sodding library, can we please _not_ talk about this?"

"…Okay." Hermione looked at her watch, and, naturally so did I. It was glowing.

"What the living sod is _that?"_

"Oh. My aunt gave it to me. It's called digital…"

"That is…" she obligingly took it off and let me inspect it, "that is so very odd…"

"I was just about to ask what you're doing on this 'bus…"

"Shopping. There seem to be little crystals with a potion that lights up with the button…"

"Oh, because I just came from my parents' office. They had their ten-thousandth appointment today and got a plaque from the Women's Institute for local business of the year, so I got a pass from McGonagall to go. Thought I'd look about for a few Muggle things while I was in town."

"Me, too. Love Muggles. Is there a battery in here somewhere?" That was really a spiffing watch. I'd never seen the like.

"A very little one, yes. It won't work at Hogwarts, but-"

"You could make it work. Take the battery and make a cast of it in plaster, then add just a bit of wax to the negative and the positive, melt it out, add bronze, and you get a little hollow copy. Fill that with a combination of wormwood and mercury, then cast just a tiny Stunning Spell on the thing."

"Jessie…" Hermione looked utterly shocked. "Did you think that up?"

"Sorta. Granddad and I were asked to make a Muggleborn fellow's alarmclock run in magical areas, and eventually we came up with that. Works okay, though you have to keep casting the Stunner about once a month. Why?"

"That's severe Muggle-artifact tampering, for one thing."

"Um…Hermione…we have a way out of that…"

"They haven't given out licenses since-"

"December _sixteenth_, 1789 is the date on ours."

I didn't find it any more flattering when she cracked up utterly yet again. There was a look somewhere between awe and ecstatic joy on her face, though, so I guessed she was particularly fond of the digital watch. I understood perfectly. I was getting fond of the thing myself.

"Jessie, when does the shop open today?"

"It doesn't. I take the day off every third Sunday of the month."

"Good. Do you think you could come back to Hogwarts with me?"

Okay, that was unexpected.

"I d'know…" I looked at the watch again. As it turned ten o'clock, it let out a happy, charming 'beep.' _"Cool!"_

"I'll let you play with it the whole way down…"

"Okay!"

Really, sometimes I am too easily bought.

Since I Apparate so badly, we got on the 10:15 train at King's Cross and got to Hogsmeade by about 11:50. Interestingly enough, the Hogwarts Express has great breakfast service. Their bacon is really good. It was noon by the time we trudged up to the Hogwarts gates, and by then I had already taken the watch apart and put it back together. I was somewhat saddened when it blinked out of service on the grounds, but I knew it would go back on as soon as Hermione took it someplace more Mugglefied. Digital watches are very interesting.

Anyway, we headed up to the second floor and stopped in front of this especially wonky-looking statue of a gargoyle. Honestly, the gargoyle looks as if it's having a bad cough, or perhaps gargling, not, you know, being frightening or whatever it is gargoyles are meant to do. Hermione promptly told the gargoyle something, which sounded uncannily like 'canary creams,' and it stepped aside and opened a previously secret door.

"This is Dumbledore's office, isn't it?" I asked in astonishment. "I've only been here once before…what are we doing here?"

"Jessie…there's something quite important we might need your help with. Something serious."

Somehow I knew it wasn't the giant clock.

"…Okay."

Still wondering just what the sod she was thinking, I followed my friend up the corkscrewy staircase. Dumbledore's office is really a splendid place, with portraits all over, the Sorting Hat, a lot of books, and a really magnificent wall clock. The Headmaster's pet bird looked very exotic on its' gold perch. He made a little noise, and I immediately felt better.

"Nice bird," I observed, half to the bird and half to Hermione. "'Sort is he?"

"Fawkes is a phoenix," a friendly voice explained. I turned round and saw the Headmaster himself coming to the bottom of the stairs. "You've come on a good day to see him. His molt just ended and that always puts him in a merry mood. What brings you here today, Miss Tickes?"

"I…well…actually…well, _she_ does." I inclined my head in Hermione's direction and she smiled. I still felt a bit outclassed and didn't know what to do. "Something you might need done?"

"Her family has the last license," Hermione explained.

"Ah, yes. I recall the time one of the James Tickes got out of detention for modifying a Muggle ball-point. Added a feather when he got sick of spilling ink. First-year. Was it the sixth or the seventh? It _is_ hard to keep track of that family, I'm afraid."

"I can never quite manage it, myself," I admitted.

"Yes. Well, the females are quite a bit easier. You are the fourth Jamesina, correct?"

"Yep –well, counting the two who married in. There aren't half so many girls."

"I know of several wizarding families which have been primarily comprised of boys for years. Fortunately the female population is well on the increase since the last century. It likely explains the improvements in fashion and politics." Dumbledore opened a covered dish and held it out to us. "Lemon drop?"

"Thanks." I've always been fond of lemon drops. Hermione declined. Her parents are dentists, poor kid. "You need some Muggle stuff modified, is that it? I can certainly-"

"Miss Tickes, if you don't mind, when was the last time you voted?"

"Voted?" I thought for a good half minute. "Three weeks ago at the Chamber of Commerce. We were picking the color of next year's 'Welcome to Diagon Alley!' banner for the back-to-school season."

"Oh." I got the nasty impression both the Headmaster and Head Girl were trying not to laugh. "And which did you favor?"

"I liked black letters on a white background with a sparkly border of red, green, blue and gold. That way, you get all the House colors and noone's offended. That, and the red-on-green one last year wound up staying hung 'til Christmas. Looked a right mess by Boxing Day."

"Very sensible. What about elections?"

"I haven't voted in a Ministry one yet, since I was underage last time, but I voted for Luna Lovegood as bulletin-board manager in seventh year." Hermione really did crack up just then. "_What?_ Might as well get something interesting to read for once…"

"You have no political inclinations?" Dumbledore inquired. I scratched my head for a second.

"Well, I can't say I care much for Fudge. I didn't like his Knockturn Alley policy before, and since this afternoon, I'm right inclined to vote against him in anything. Wouldn't put him in the Department of Centaur Relations, let alone Minister."

"Fudge was talking to someone dodgy on a Muggle bus this morning. Jessie overheard everything."

Suddenly, Dumbledore seemed a lot more serious.

"Miss Tickes, exactly what was discussed, if you can tell me?"

I repeated everything as best I could. Dumbledore's calm face went to stern in moments and he strode quickly over to the desk. In moments he had written a note. The handsome phoenix hurried over and took it, flying out the window at a remarkable speed. "This is of decided importance, Miss Tickes."

"Please, sir, you can call me Jessie."

"Thank you. The incident at Knockturn Alley –what do you know of it?"

I spilled my guts again. You just can't help but trust Dumbledore. The only bit I left out was the fact that I had been on a date with Charlie before we wound up at Redfern's. Still, it didn't do much to improve the mood.

"Really, sir, Fudge's policy on Knockturn Alley was bad before. It's dead likely he'd let the Death Eaters wreck the place. Any excuse to improve his own image."

"Jessie, are you aware of the last war against Voldemort? You were quite a young child then."

I straightened and set my teeth.

"All I know is the Tickes broke neutrality for the first time since Grindelwald."

Tickes neutrality is something along the lines of Weasley mischief or Malfoy snobbery. See, the James Tickes who founded the shop was the grandson of an immigrant. Johannes Montreschmitt von Bern was a Swiss who fled one or the other Hapsburg wars and eventually wound up in America.

Now, American immigration procedure back then was not so great, and the fact that my illustrious ancestor had just had a tooth pulled on board the ship did not improve the state of communications. The name Montreschmitt is actually a Swiss combination of the French for 'watch' and the German for 'maker,' and Johannes was anxious to keep the name. It must have made business cards quite simple.

At any rate, the fellow at the office could not understand my ancestor at all. He managed to write down first 'monster' and then 'myren' for 'montre' and finally Johannes lost his temper and pulled out his watch, pointing at it and yelling in German. The man at the office assumed that this angry fellow was referring to the sound the watch made and not the watch itself, and promptly wrote down 'Myren Tikks' on the immigration record. This so offended my ancestor that he took his slip, turned around, and got back on the ship. America could go sod itself, in his opinion.

He unfortunately got on the wrong ship and wound up in London with no identification in English except the slip of paper. The London customs officials were no better, but after he repaired the watch of a high immigration official on the spot, they granted him citizenship under the new name of 'Myron Tickes.' It was at this point that he more or less gave up in disgust. Noone could pronounce 'Montreschmitt' properly anyway, and it _was_ a bit of a beast to spell.

One of the secretaries at the Immigration Office was a woman, surprising for the time, and she made a casual remark to Johannes that she liked the name. Interestingly enough, he liked _her_. He offered ten shillings a week for her to teach him English, which she gratefully accepted, being a widow with a young son called Ian. At the end of two years he was fluent in English, married to the secretary, and in the process of adopting the six-year-old Ian Gardner. By the tenth year, the secretary, Fiona Gardner Tickes, had given birth to two more sons, who were called James and John, since she was not all that creative in terms of names. ('Ian' is the Gaelic form of 'John,' you know.)

James was a more or less ordinary fellow, but John was extremely and profoundly unusual. While his brother managed to join the British Army at sixteen by lying about his age, John had been invited at eleven to what looked like higher education. Both brothers returned on holidays to demonstrate new and horrible things to their shocked parents. At seventeen, James had a fiendish new kind of musket that could hit a man perfectly at a hundred yards, and at twelve John had a weird little wooden stick that could make the musket shoot daffodils and tulips. Switzerland is very near Holland, and this impiety to tulips made Myron very suspicious. Ian, however, was fond of his younger half-brothers and listened closely to their tales of life in the army and away at school. Myron dismissed John's tales as imagination, but Ian believed and was invited as his half-brother's guest when the seventeen-year-old competed in what we now know as a Triwizard tournament.

It was this same year that the twenty-two-year-old Sergeant James Tickes was sent to America to help in a war they were having. Myron eagerly embraced the cause for which his favorite son had gone to fight. The Union Jack was hung prominently above a portrait of the King. He read newspapers so voraciously that his English actually improved farther and went every other Saturday at four in the morning to wait on the docks for the soldiers' mail from the Colonies.

One sad day he staggered home to his wife and stepson from the docks. John had just arrived home from school and Mrs. Tickes was making roast chicken to celebrate. Myron walked in, set down his toolbag, and retrieved a hammer. Slowly and with perfect deliberation, he pulled the nails from the wall that had been holding the flag. He folded it into a triangle and shoved it in a drawer. Then he took the hammer and broke the glass that covered the portrait of George III. He removed the small painting and with perfect calm set it on the fire.

"I am left with two sons and no country. Let no son of mine ever again take sides with a nation against another, and I will be contented."

And this is why, with few exceptions, the Tickes have never broken our Swiss-heritage neutrality. John's son James founded the shop, and we have been as we are ever since. During the War of 1812 we supplied watches to anyone who asked, whether a British officer or a French pirate who sold goods to the Americas. In the French Revolution we bought jewels from displaced nobles and sold watches to Robespierre's men. But we never took sides.

This is possibly why there has never been a Tickes in Gryffindor or Slytherin. We're cowardly enough to keep out and clever enough to profit. Rotten of us, I know, but it's in the line of tradition and custom and such.

There have been times when we never needed to take sides. After all, with the shops in London and Hogsmeade, it was dreadfully hard for the Kaiser's soldiers to order watches from us, and the Nazis couldn't exactly get in touch to inquire after clock repairs. So we left well enough alone, sold watches to the side of whatever was closest, and there it was. The simplest decision was not to decide. The conflict with Ireland and England was a little trickier. We solved the problem when James the fourth accidentally exploded a glassblowing project and lost most of his hearing. With the inability to determine a spoken accent, we were able to maintain impartiality.

The Grindelwald war, however, was the first time we Tickes really broke our neutrality, and did we ever. Most people had a vague idea that we like to keep out of scuffles, but it was in the early forties that another James finally out and out declared us neutral, which, naturally, caused a bit of kerfuffle. Severe Light and Dark supporters alike boycotted, and the people who were on the fence frequented the shop, sometimes more for a place to hear talk about something besides war than to buy watches. Of course, eventually Light and Dark alike wound up needing clocks, and it was here that my granduncle was killed. He had a customer needing a watch fixed very late at night, and he noticed there was blood on the man's robe as well as hex damage to the watch. Murder can be viewed as a civil crime as well as an act of war, so he owled the Aurors, solving the problem with a technicality. As the Dark wizard was being bundled off, however, he managed to get off one hex, which missed my granduncle, but shattered a clock and sent a shard of glass directly into his neck.

Great-grandmother Jamesina was now left with one surviving son and a sick husband. Great-grandfather had been ill before and his eldest son's death simply did him in. I don't think he lasted the year. My grandfather Myron was only about sixteen, but he came home from school to help run the shop. Since Great-grandmother Jamesina had been a Switch before she was a Tickes, she wasn't as loyal to the neutrality idea, not to mention she had lost a son, and my grandfather was so angry at the loss of his brother that together they formally sided with the Light, unbeknownst to the incapacitated husband and father they carefully misinformed.

Every soul on the side of the Light found their prices slashed, their repair bills reduced or 'misplaced,' (if we lose the bill, we don't charge,) and funny sales began to appear. Dumbledore's brother Aberforth found himself subject to the Fifty Percent Off for Wizards Wearing Maroon discount, which has only been used twice in our history, (Ron wanted that Snitch for Harry, remember?) and a pretty seventh-year got the Cat Hairs on Robes discount, which I recently revived. Two years later, Grindelwald was defeated, and we resumed our neutral attitude toward everyone.

We also sided against Voldemort, for similar reasons.

"There is another such war brewing, Miss Tickes." Dumbledore looked sterner than I'd ever seen him. "I know there were circumstances that brought your family into the last. I don't expect the same situation now, but it is the same evil, and this time the need is even greater."

I didn't _need_ to think. Those 'circumstances' were enough to have me fuming on a bus; they were more than enough to get a few watches out of me. Besides, this was a civil matter, almost personal compared to the clashes of nations Myron the first had declared us out of.

"You've got yourself a clocksmith. What needs fixed around here?"

Really, I had to hand it to Hermione and the other Muggle-borns. The ideas they had! Why, that old snake You-Know –_Voldemort_ would never see it coming. And all they needed me to do was crank out a few hundred batteries…it was practically cake! Even if Grandfather or Dad disapproved, I could keep a little thing like potion batteries under the hat a bit.

But somehow, I doubted they'd disapprove. Circumstances, you know.

We finished up in Dumbledore's office near the end of lunchtime, and I was generously invited to my first Hogwarts meal since I'd graduated. I'm not so bad a cook, but the elves are really great. Besides, it was sandwiches and a soup I've always liked, which suited the rotten weather perfectly. Alumni are allowed to eat…wherever, I guess. It'd have been rather weird sitting at the Head Table, though I got the impression I was quite welcome to sit with Professors Flitwick and Sinistra. As it was, I wound up with a pack of girls, all of whom wanted to know not what I was doing there, not what I had been discussing with Dumbledore and Hermione, but how my date with Charlie went!

I am entirely disgusted with my gender sometimes. But you knew that already.

I admonished them to keep the whole thing quiet. After all, if the twins found out, there'd be an end to it before there was an 'it,' just out of sheer older-brotheryness. They all agreed, Ginny especially, and then proceeded to press me for more and better details. I told them about the Knockturn Alley raid instead. I didn't quite feel like telling the whole slew of them, Lavender and Parvati as well as Padma, who I knew better, Luna, whom I liked, for all she was three years younger, like Ginny, and Hermione, who had gotten to be a sort of friend in my seventh year. I'd have been perfectly fine telling Ginny, if a bit blushy, and after all, he is her brother. Hermione is also cool. Luna I've always trusted implicitly –mostly because she's unlikely to gossip about anyone's love life unless it involves escaped convicts and at least four cases of mistaken identity. Padma is mostly fine, but I don't know her all that well…and her twin plus Lavender equal a small broadcasting company, so I kept the more personal aspect of the past few days under the hat.

I didn't realize they would be so fascinated with the politics of the Alleys. But then, the Alleys are places to shop, and shopping always kind of struck me as the national sport of gossipy teenage girls, so there was logic there. I described the arrival of the Aurors and the use of Eggs, which cracked them up a bit. Perhaps I was a little colorful at that point. When I got to the bit about Crabbe and Goyle senior being arrested, though, with the random cousin, things got a bit shifty.

We were, incidentally, at the Ravenclaw table, and the Great Hall was near empty. I think there was maybe one teacher left at the Head Table, and if there was, it would have to have been Snape, judging by what happened then.

Lavender and Parvati were making nasty remarks about Crabbe and Goyle, as is their wont, being slightly tactless creatures, and I don't think they even realized that the big lumps –I mean, Slytherins in question were actually present and listening. Their "Lord and Master, Dragon-boy Burnt-butt," (Ginny's immortal words, not mine,) was also eavesdropping closely. I sometimes wonder if they really do get lost without him to keep them from wandering into walls.

It was just as Lavender finished a particularly venomous supposition regarding the combined intellects of Crabbe and Goyle in comparison to that of a garden snail that a particularly foul word echoed through the Hall.

Now, I had just heard that word applied to my mother, who died before I was old enough to walk, let alone remember her. This event sent my father into deep mourning until I could fix a movement unassisted, which left me to be raised by my then-teenaged uncle and elderly grandfather. This was a word I also heard applied to my friend Hermione, who personally tutored an 'E' Potions N.E.W.T. out of me, and a number of other people whom I held in high esteem.

I must also point out that this was not a good time of the month to be messing with me, and also the fact that the 'no magic in the halls' rule applies exclusively to Hogwarts students, with no mention whatsoever of alumni, however recent.

But I am dreadfully sorry to say that I did not hex either Slytherin in the cods.

Ginny and Luna beat me to it with a double-shot of the Bat-Bogeys.

A moment later, we had Professor Snape breathing down our collective necks. I made some very transparent excuse, apologized, claimed to have done it, (I'd had my wand out, and it _was_ possible if I had suddenly been Ginny for ten seconds,) and chose that moment to deliver his new watch.

"Commissioned by your…erm…employer," I explained, looking away. I meant to imply Dumbledore, but Malfoy must have taken it the wrong way, because his eyebrow arched –or that might have been an errant Bogey-Bat. "Note the crystals…er…sparkly…"

"Miss Tickes, the past seven months of business have _not_ improved your articulation in the slightest. In the seven _years_ you were my student, I don't believe I heard a complete sentence." Well. Snape. "On the other hand, this watch is a marked improvement on your previous, _fanciful_ designs, and since you seem to have finally produced an object of function, I believe I can overlook your involvement in this _unfortunate_ matter. You and your…_hostesses_ –are free to leave."

That is Snape-code for 'run like hell, you silly girls.'

Outside, near the stairwell, I remembered something.

"He doesn't know about the…the you-know-what!" Hermione was calm as ever.

"Yes, he does."

"He does…oh." I must have looked fairly gobsmacked. Lavender and Parvati had sprinted off, Ginny had left with Luna, and Padma looked to be library-bound again. I looked again at Hermione, who seemed just a little too…well, _Hermione_, than was appropriate. Calm, collected, strangely knowing… "You know, you had that look right before you came up with 'spew,' I bet…"

"Possibly," she agreed absently. "Don't worry. Sev-"

The look of perfect Hermione-calm disintegrated into the best look of 'oh, crap' blushing 'I-screwed-up' I had ever seen. My eyebrows shot off my forehead for a second and I clearly felt my jaw bouncing on the stone.

"_Wha__'_ was that?"

She grinned and poked me.

"Gotcha."

"Drat you, yeh Gryffindor! Don't scare me like that! …do it to Fred sometime?"

"Of course!"

"Crazy _nit_…liable to blow a mainspring in my aorta or summat…good prank, though. After the twins, takes a good bit to get jumps on me."

"I figured you'd appreciate it. Nice of you to take blame for the Bat-Bogeys."

"Ginny an' Luna just beat me to a Severing Charm on th' nether bits."

"Jessie!"

"Wha'? S'one of the best charms I can do. George suggested it if a date got too fresh."

"That is disgusting…"

I left soon after, but it was halfway to London on the train that I realized, people don't breathe like that out of suppressed laughter at a prank. Maybe she has allergies like my stepmother.

At any rate, it was back to the shop to get started on a messload of batteries.


	11. A Bat

Chapter Eleven: A Bat

What happened later that evening really doesn't have much of an impact on the greater picture, local politics and the fate of the world -or indeed really anything important. It's not even a very _interesting_ part of the story. But since I've been asked for my take on things, it's got to be in here, even though the very fact that I'm telling it proves how not-a-big-deal it was.

After all, there was a lot of rough stuff going on in 1996. When Dumbledore asked me to make batteries and alter Muggle objects to run by magical means, I knew matters were bad. Dumbledore didn't look like his usual self, more weary than usual. The poor man had a hurt hand, too, and since I hadn't been reading the papers (I don't read the _Prophet_ and _Quidditch Weekly_ had gotten snaffled up by the twins for a couple of weeks,) I didn't realize it wasn't a common burn. Rather than say anything, though, I just resolved to send him some of Great-grandmother's burn cream when I got home.

And that I did. My stepmother makes it very well and keeps me more than supplied with the stuff. In fact, I get about a twenty-ounce jar a month of it, and Ian gets just as much sore-muscle cream. She likes looking after us in little ways, which is kind, and I do use a lot of the stuff, being prone to accidents and frequently around hot things. I stopped by Quality Quidditch Supplies to pick up a birthday present for Ian I had ordered and then the apothecary for a small, but vaguely elegant jar. Once home, I cleaned, dried and filled the little present-jar, then added a tag, on which I wrote: _'This is some burn cream my stepmother made. Hope it helps'_ and my signature, which, incidentally, is 'J.W. Tickes IV' with a little zip-back squiggle underneath. I'm used to writing it very fast, hence the initials, but since there are two living J.W.'s, I add the number so my signature can be undoubtedly discerned from my father's. (I'm the fourth female J.W. Dad is the tenth male.) That, and it kind of looks cool.

Since I was getting ready for a post office trip anyway, I unwrapped the shipping parcel Ian's present had come in and inspected it. I'm no authority, but the contents of the box certainly appeared to be Seeker's gloves, and they were the brand, style and size he liked. They also had little shamrocks embroidered on the strap ends and Ian's name (I.G. Tickes V, though the 'fifth' wasn't quite necessary since Uncle Gard doesn't play Quidditch professionally,) which was why they had needed to be specially ordered. I placed them back in the box; got some of the blue and white striped paper I use for shop parcels, and wrapped it. Then I added a few little charms, so the blue stripes were sparkly, and a bow, as well as a tag: _'Happy birthday, Ian! Love, Jessie.' _I put some brown paper over that, in case the owl arrived while he was with the team, and then I wrapped the jar of burn cream in a little box and more brown paper.

Then I went to the post office and sent both parcels, each with a brown owl. I _am_ fond of owls, but I never owned one. It's probably because I am also fond of cats and of toads and never quite picked a favorite. That, and people usually send their own to pick up watches. Of course, that does kind of work out well, because if I have to owl something, the post office isn't far, and then there's a record there that I did send it –something one can't do with a private owl. It prevents disputes.

Then it occurred to me that a private owl just for letters would be nice. I could also train it to hate chocolate and it could bring me a fix every so often from Honeyduke's.

So I went to Eeylop's and looked around at the owls there. It made me kind of sad, the way they all seemed to want to be taken home. I couldn't have picked one.

"Miss…?" a voice inquired. "Can I help you…Miss Tickes!" That was odd. It was Rebecca Feathersham, a Hufflepuff who was only a little older than me. She could've called me by first name, not 'Miss,' as I knew she knew it. But I supposed Eeylop's had different policies than other shops.

Incidentally, I was still dressed in my authentic Muggle clothing, which explained her jumping. Oh! And I found out who Pink Floyd is. It's a band from the Seventies. I thought it was a person who might want his shirt back, but I was wrong. Go figure.

"Allo there…just lookin' at owls…"

"So, you're finally thinking of buying one?"

"I d'know…looks like."

"Well, what do you want it for?"

I'm a shopkeeper, myself, so I know how helpful they are. My area is timepieces, and I bet I could match person to timepiece without fail …pretty well, if not perfectly. I knew almost nothing about owls, but if there's one thing I've learnt, being a shopkeeper, it's that if you just let the shopkeepers help you out, not only does it usually work out well, but you learn a lot about whatever it is you're shopping for. And Becky'd been at Eeylop's since her graduation, so…

"I need an owl to deliver letters and maybe a small package now and then, but it's just a correspondence owl. I use post ones for business stuff."

"Sounds good. It's for the record, right?" I nodded. "We do that, too, with shipments of medication and supplies and such. Any speed requirements?"

"Well…I'd like letters to arrive within the day or so, but I don't want to strain the poor owl. My family's mainly in Hogsmeade, but Ian tours…" Becky smiled.

"We have some nice midrange owls who can quite comfortably make a London to Scotland roundtrip twice a day and most of Europe at least once, but if your brother's going farther and you need to reach him quickly, an upper-midrange distance flyer might be a better investment."

"The farthest he's been is China."

"An upper-midrange could reach China with no trouble. It might take a day each way, unless you want something with particular speed."

"No, a day's alright…just comfortable owl speed sounds good."

"Owls can fly many different speeds. If you wanted an owl to make it to Scotland from London in…four hours without discomfort, a medium-speed flier should do nicely."

"That's perfect." Becky started checking a layout chart of the shop. I don't believe in those, but then, I've never needed one. Smaller premises, I guess.

"So we're looking at upper-midrange distance, low to medium weight capacity, medium speed flier." Becky raised an eyebrow at me. "You do realize you've just ordered an average post owl. Is there anything about it you'd like to be special or different?"

"Well…" I thought. "Do they come in any special colors?"

"Come with me." I knew that grin. I get it myself a lot.

A few minutes later, I was looking at the cages of a nearly orange owl with violet eyes, a pale gray one with a slightly blue tinge to her feathers (called a jay owl,) who seemed to be asleep, and a black one with red eyes. They were actually out of white owls. "It's because of Harry Potter. Noone used to want white ones –they're too flashy, but he adopted one, so everyone else wants one." Becky lowered her tone. "And a good job, too. White ones were getting bought up by post in little wayside spots and used for distances they couldn't handle. That Boy-Who-Lived is also the Boy-Who-Saved-A-Lot-of-Owls-From-Not-Very-Nice-Careers."

"I keep getting asked what sort of watch he wears. It's disturbing."

"Have you actually met him?" Becky's eyes lit up in an unseemly way.

"Yeah." She looked like I'd admitted to meeting Merlin with a 'yeah.' I began to feel a little on-edge.

"What's he like?"

"Just a sixth-year. He likes Quidditch, though, and Weasleys' jokes…oh, and he wears shirts with stripes when not in the school uniform, and a Weasley sweater in winter." I love to bore people who ask stupid questions. It amuses me.

"Jamesina, you're _useless_ for gossip. Always were. Is he seeing anyone?"

"Not that I've heard." _'Though he does have eyes,'_ I thought.

"How about the one Weasley he's friends with? Ron?"

"I d'know…you were two classes above _me_, though! They're kids!"

"Yeah, but they're _interesting_ kids. How about you? Are _you_ seeing anyone?"

"Not that I've heard." _'But I have eyes, also, and a moron's in front of me…'_

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, Jamesina. If _you're_ not seeing anyone…"

"What? I've been busy with the shop."

"Yes! Barely twenty and you've your own shop already! You're the most successful girl tradesman in Diagon."

Actually, that week I was still nineteen.

"Am not. I took over the family shop. The Redferns _started_ theirs and they're _weeks_ younger."

"Oh, those Knockturn pawnbrokers, nobody thinks of _them_. But _your_ shop's _respectable_."

"And older than dirt," I observed bluntly. The way she was talking kind of bothered me.

"Did you hear about Stan Shunpike?" I was about to say no, I hadn't, when she chipped in: "Sent to Azkaban. They say he's a Dark wizard…"

"Stan?" I must've looked pretty confused. "Stan can't wind a watch, let alone work for You-Know-Who. I had to set a charm on his-"

"Oh, but he must be. It was in the _Prophet_, just yesterday!"

Okay. Now I was getting ticked.

By the way, that expression 'ticked off'? It _did_ used to have a capital T in it, and yes, it _is_ a wizarding English phrase, and yes, I think you _do_ know to whose family it allegedly refers. I'm not _certain_ it's true, but Uncle Gard seems inordinately proud of it, so it likely is. Of course, he also has an idea of where we got the word '_mal_content,' so his etymology isn't the soundest to be found…

Anyway.

"The _Prophet_?" I let out my finest Ginny Weasley snort and Becky's eyes widened. This made her look more like a fish than a ferret. "_That_ old rag? I wouldn't line boxes with it. I do subscribe, though, the furnace does well with party line. It's _Pravda_ with pictures."

"It's…what?"

"_Pravda_, the Russian government's newspaper before the fall of Communism. It's just like it. _'We say what we want you to know,'_ –y'know?" She was staring and I realized she might want to try denouncing me as some kind of traitor to crosswords that are too easy or something, so I added the Lavender Brown Special: "_Everyone_ says so."

"Really?"

"_Totally_." Wow, I can speak Blonde. "My crowd only reads it to find out what the Ministry's newest line is. The _real_ news is in…" I scrambled for a publication, anything, while Becky assumed I was making a dramatic pause. _"The Quibbler."_

It was all I could think of! I'd just seen Luna that day.

_"Really?"_

"_Yes_. It's …in code, of course, but a bright 'un like you'll have it in no time. Mustn't let the Ministry run our lives, eh what?"

"Oh, _no_." Becky's beady eyes shone. I began to feel very slightly guilty about messing with her tiny mind like that, but then I thought of how she talked about the Redferns and felt better, even pleased with myself. "I knew the real purebloods didn't read that old scrap." I could have hit her. "So…the owls…"

"I kind of like the gray one."

"The jay owl? She's a nice one."

"Don't they come with names?"

"No, not really."

"Okay. How much?"

"Oh..." Becky looked embarrassed, so I glanced at the tag. It was roughly what I made in a day, which, it seems, is what some employed shopkeepers make in, say, a month. I didn't know that, then, though. Fred and George told me afterward. I would've felt bad for Becky. She probably thought she had gotten my hopes up on an owl I couldn't afford. But it was actually pretty good, I thought, and the owl had just woken up. She had green eyes. I wanted her.

"I'll take her. And a big cage, and some owl food. What do they eat, again?"

I think the look on Becky's face more than made up for her arrogance toward me as a first-year. Things like that work out nicely sometimes.

I decided on the way home to name the owl 'Agnetha,' but then it occurred to me that I could only spell it if I actually had the ABBA record cover in front of me, so I changed my mind and asked her what she thought of 'Mrs. Miniver' as a name. She clicked her beak approvingly. It's really a good name. Mrs. Miniver was this sweet English lady whose son was in the RAF during the war and she had a rose named after her. It's a movie. I saw it on a Muggle Studies field trip once. Mrs. Miniver the owl was also dignified and had a sort of brave look to her, as well as green eyes, which are very nice, if unusual, in owls, and I just thought it suited her. So there it was.

I walked down Diagon Alley, ducking under shoppers with big packages carried over their heads, slipping between crowds and walls, and generally making good time. Along about Florean Fortescue's, I slowed down, as my nearer neighbors are generally the nicer ones. Sure enough, Florean stepped out to empty a bucket of water into the sewer grate (it's faster, and keeps the sewer grate tidy,) and greeted me:

"Hello, Jessie! Who's this?"

"Mrs. Miniver, I think."

"New owl?"

"Yep."

"I think she looks like a Mrs. Miniver. It's a good name. And she's a jay owl… I tell you what, wait here just a moment." Florean ducked in and came back with a cone full of the lovely diced walnuts he sprinkles on sundaes. "These are within ten minutes of being stale. Perfect for owls." He crouched and poured a little of the nuts into the dish inside her cage. Mrs. Miniver hooted and actually rubbed her beak against his fingers. "Wow, she's a sweetheart."

"I just picked her out today."

"And those eyes! Tell me, did you see any black owls, about her size?"

"Yes, actually, one with red eyes."

"A Poe owl. That sounds like just the thing. My little nephew learned how to write recently, and I thought an owl of his own…the trouble is, he's fond of black birds, and owls of that color are a trifle rare. I'll stop by Eeylop's and have a look."

"It seemed like a nice one to me. But what I know about owls you could fit on a second hand."

"Well, it's the black ones he can see the best. But he is seeing, even if just a little bit. He's writing with a kind of Muggle pen, makes a nice dark line…" Florean pulled out a piece of paper and unfolded it to about newspaper size. "And his spelling is perfect. I bet my sister spells about a hundred words a day."

"Have the Healers said anything else about it?"

"Not yet, but they think a little while and a few more treatments will fix it up."

"Optimistic Healers are good news. They didn't think my brother would ever fly again, and look how wrong they were. They only show optimism when it's a sure thing."

"Think so?"

"Oh, yeah. And your nephew writes really well for a little kid. He's seven, right?"

"Yes…he'll be eight in a week."

"I'd get a look at the owl, then."

"Oh, and Jessie…" Florean handed me the cone of nuts and folded the letter up. "Thank you for the Braille watch. My sister didn't think Loren would get to tell time from a watch like other children…"

"Florean, it was _nothing_. I just hopped a hinge on the crystal and added Braille dots. It was fun for me. Does he like it?"

"It's his favorite possession. He wears it everywhere."

"Glad to hear that. Watches are good for kids."

"He's coming to visit in a few days, so my sister can set up for his birthday…but he doesn't know that part."

"Going to teach him the secret of a three-way banana split sundae?"

"Of course! Heaven forbid the art die with me!"

I like Florean. His younger sister's house burned down when his nephew Loren was a baby, and the smoke did something to his eyesight. But I wasn't exaggerating about the Healers and their reserve in matters of optimism. They like to give people a chance to come to terms with something horrible when they think it won't get better, which offended Uncle Gard terribly when Ian got hurt in a two-bludger flying accident when I was twelve. Ian hasn't so much as a mark, now, but for a while it was touch-and-go. Those Healers don't like to hand out hope. Mrs. Miniver seemed to like him, too. I gave her feathers a stroke through the cage and she made a pleased hooting noise.

"Look, Min." It seemed like a good abbreviation of her name to me. "That's Weasley's. Our gentlemen friends live there. And here's home."

"Hoot?"

"Yes, we make clocks here. That's the ticking noise."

"Whooo."

"Me. Well, I…I make the clocks." I was talking with an owl?

"Hoot."

"I assume you're happy with the arrangements, then?" Mrs. Miniver straightened and clicked her beak at me. She really did seem like a nice owl. I had never bought anything that important, and especially not so coolly –walk in, pick out, take home. And an owl is really more of a 'whom' than a 'what,' I think…or at least Mrs. Miniver seemed to be. "I tell you what. This is the owl perch. You can have your pick of the branches. And I can put your cage somewhere near a window if you like a breeze…but as long as you're like, cage-trained, you don't have to stay in it all the time. _Are_ you cage-trained?"

"Hoot."

"Well, I guess you'll tell me soon enough." I opened her cage and Min stepped out of it, then fluttered up to a high branch of the owl perch. I got the nut cone and poured the rest into the knothole-shaped dish that was nearest her spot. "More nuts?" She hooted. "Do you like the owl perch? My great-great-grandfather found a tree like that and carved in the little food recesses and added that drawer for treats, then transfigured it into brass." Min rubbed her head against the polished brass bark and made a sort of chirring sound, which I took to be affirmative. "I hope you like it here."

"Hoot."

And that's how I got my owl. But I still hadn't gotten dinner. It was almost five, so I gave Min some owl food and told her I'd be back soon. She gave me a little headrub and hooted, which I took to be a good sign. After all, if I were an owl, I wouldn't have wanted to be purchased and brought home by the first clockmaking so-and-so who thought my plumage was attractive, without so much as a by-your-leave. But then, maybe Mrs. Miniver liked me too. I resolved to bring home some owl treats –and perhaps dinner would be stir-fry with nuts.

Grocery shopping only took me about an hour. When I got home, though, there was a note on my front door:

'Jessie,  
'Don't worry about dinner. Fred and George are at Mum's, so I'm cooking.  
-Charlie.'

I smiled and opened the door. Min hooted at me and I set down a bag to scratch her little owl ears. She seemed to like that. "You get to meet Charlie soon. He lives across the street." She clicked her beak and angled her head to touch my hand as I was drawing at away. "Oh, you like scritches? You're a nice owl, yes, you are...I'll just put away the groceries and then I'll get you an owl treat. That sound good?" I liked her already.

As I put the food away, I noticed it was getting unusually dark outside. It had been raining earlier, so I chalked it up to clouds and the approach of more autumnal weather. I got out a bag of walnuts, which I knew Min would like, and then it occurred to me that I should make some manner of dessert. I turned to get the mixing bowl and felt a weight suddenly on my shoulder. It felt like claws, even. "Min?"

"Hoot." She clicked her beak and I looked in the mirror. Sure enough, I had an owl on my shoulder. It looked very funny, especially considering Min's a medium-sized owl, about the size of a macaw or so. She angled her head at me.

"Oh, am I a pirate then?" I opened the walnuts and cracked one for her. "If you say so, Mrs. Miniver. But I have to make brownies now, so no feathers in the mix."

By the time I had the brownies in the oven, I was as used to Min as I was to my pliers with the green handles. We suited each other well. As I started tidying up the shop, she flew back over to the perch, but when I sat down at the front worktable she set herself right back on my shoulder. If I sat up straighter, it worked very well, and my back didn't ache the way it had when I crouched down to the nose over a piece of gearwork. I just had to tilt the table differently. At one point I took off my glasses to clean them and Min flew over to the other table and brought a dinner napkin for me to polish the lenses with. She _is_ a clever owl.

"Do you want to send a note for me, Mrs. Miniver?" I asked. I picked up the scratch-paper tablet and wrote:  
_'Dear Charlie,  
'I'm making brownies. Fancy some ice cream with? And I bought an owl. Her name is Mrs. Miniver. See you soon.  
-Jessie'_

"He lives across the street, has red hair…can you find him, Min?" She clicked her beak as if to say 'Of course I can, idiot,' accepted the note, and flew out the door the moment I opened it for her. I closed it up again, but didn't lock it. Then I set back to work.

I was just tapping my foot to the record player when I heard a 'ding' that wasn't from a clock. I looked, and discovered that one of the twins had left a Bludger-bat under my worktable. That was a little odd, but it didn't bother me much.

I was working on the watch for Harry Potter again. It was nearly done, but not quite perfect. Becky's mindless prattle had reminded me of him, and I felt kind of bad. I don't read the _Prophet_ now because it's rubbish, but I hadn't read it for years beforehand. When you work in a shop and live in town, people discuss the news around you. That way, you get several opinions of it and understand it fairly well. The only thing I read in the _Prophet_ is the crossword, and that's just when Granddad lights up the fireplace asking for help with it.

But from what the twins had been saying, the news had lately been divided into three topics: Harry Potter, You-Know-Who, and the Ministry. I didn't like the Ministry, and my feelings on You-Know-Who were well known to be in the negative. Harry was just a nice, likable kid, like the twins' brother Ron or Hermione Granger or Luna Lovegood. Being close to Gred and Forge, I felt rather protective of anyone they did. So I suppose my feelings on the whole mess were something in the line of 'they're messing with the twins' younger siblings here.'

That, and Harry's a Seeker. That equates him with Ian in my mind –and they do look a little alike, only Ian's lots taller and doesn't wear glasses. I met Hermione in my sixth year and she was an okay sort, even a friend. So the whole 'war on kids' idea was ruffling my feathers quite a bit. I was still a little on-edge from the whole Knockturn Alley business as well. People attacking shops –it's a scary prospect. My shop is my home. Stan Shunpike being arrested was bad enough. London was so divided, any second now we might have been looking at domestic warfare.

I'm half Irish. I know what 'civil conflict' means. And there isn't a damned thing civil about it. But I really wasn't that much involved, which made me feel a bit safer, though it was obvious from the way that idiot at Eeylop's was talking that 'neutral' wasn't going to last ten minutes if things kept up. But at least my shop was safe. I looked at the Sneakoscope above the door and frowned as it started to spin and ring.

And then the window crashed in. Glass went everywhere. I ducked behind the worktable and clutched the tiny watch around my neck from Great-grandmother. As I peeked over the edge, I saw a pair of hulking figures in black robes with polished metal masks shoving my door open. Behind them came another. As his hood slipped back, I caught a flash of brilliant white-blond hair combed back behind the mask.

My foot twitched involuntarily as I gasped from sheer anger. That little git! I heard the 'ding' sound of the Bludger-bat beneath the table and immediately grabbed it with my right hand. A moment later I stood up and slashed through the air with it. The sizzle of a hex burned my other arm as the metal connected with more metal. The mask crumpled.

I felt another hex, then hard resistance to the bat. I wrenched it free and kept on swinging, though my glasses had been knocked off. Then I heard a voice, and saw a red blur.

And then I saw a flash and I don't remember much after that.


	12. A Potion

Chapter Twelve: A Potion

I woke up in a hospital bed.

Isn't that a cliché? And it just figures, too. Apparently the bits that happened right after the fight and right before I was put into said hospital bed were the most interesting. I don't even remember it. It's rotten luck for this narrative. But fortunately, I was _told_ by some very reliable redheaded sources what _did_ happen.

No, Charlie did not sweep in and single-handedly rescue me. That's one cliché you're spared. Charlie and his brother Bill _together_ swept in and _double_-handedly rescued me. It just happens that Bill tends to run faster, so he got there first, but Charlie was right behind.

(So I'm still technically allowed to feel warm and fuzzy inside. So there.)

Bill got a few good hexes in from the street as he was approaching, which apparently slowed Malfoy and his –henchmen (I _was_ going to say something quite vulgar,) down enough that I wasn't too badly hurt. He also managed to knock down either Crabbe or Goyle with a blow to the jaw. It seems to work out to this: whichever one whose mask I _didn't_ dent in, Bill knocked down. Unfortunately, the bastards managed to Portkey out a few moments after Charlie got through the door, but not before he shoved a henchman and helped Bill yank one of the three off of me.

That sounds worse than it was. I wasn't that badly hurt. At the point when I stopped seeing or hearing what was going on, I'd taken a Stunning Spell to the head. If you're familiar with boxing and the term 'glass jaw,' you can get an idea of what happened. Some people, me included, just happen to have less natural resistance to things like Stunning Spells and whatnot. In my particular case, a Stunner to the head knocks me out cold for at least a day, instead of the usual twenty-odd minutes of dizziness. (It'd happened before, in that soppy excuse for a dueling club when I was in fourth year. At least in the shop noone'd tried to wake me up with spells. Professor Lockhart miscast _Ennervate_ so badly that I wound up in Madam Pomfrey's with such a freakish burst of energy that I had to be tranquilized.) Once I was down, one of the little proto-Death Eaters had resorted to fists in favor of wand waving. So I was a little bruised and had a couple of scrapes, maybe a broken bone or two. Not a big deal, right?

Well, if one happens to be a redheaded guy, apparently it is a big deal. Chivalry's a bit inconvenient sometimes. It was thus that I woke up in St. Mungo's. My shoulder was dislocated and hurt a lot, which I would've expected the Healers to fix right off, only the burn from the hex had to be treated first and it was putting up a bit of resistance to magical treatment. I also had salve on some of the scrapes, which made them nicely tingly and smelled just like the stuff Madam Pomfrey used.

You know, I kind of miss Madam Pomfrey. It was loads easier to go up to the Hospital Wing and have her patch up whatever I'd done to myself than to Floo all the way out to St. Mungo's and have to wait in line for some apprentice Healer more interested in my Gringott's number than in whatever it was I did. And Madam Pomfrey was loads nicer. She'd kind of got used to seeing me once or twice a week with blisters or little cuts or whatnot on my hands, and once I'd fixed the barometer for her, she didn't mind me coming in all the bleeding time. Okay, wretched pun. I also digress. Again.

Anyway, I was awake, my shoulder hurt, my arm itself hurt, some other little random places, including and especially my lip hurt, I had a headache, and I smelled of minty healing goodness. My mouth also tasted kind of coppery. It's probably a rather damning indication of how accident-prone I am that none of this bothered me.

Not to say I didn't go promptly and immediately bonkers once I did wake up.

"Wha…_da fop!_ Wha' da hell a' I doing here? 'Fomeone'ff gaw t' lock da-"

"Jessie, it's okay-"

Ignoring the voice, I tried to get up and immediately realized just how much 'oww' one human shoulder and head combination can produce. I let out a groaning sort of howl, which is really all that one can do when it feels like your arm attempted to unscrew itself while someone filled your head with caffeinated Pygmy Puffs wearing chestnut-burr costumes.

"Jessie? What hurts?" I dimly recognized the voice as that of a Weasley, but I couldn't be certain which. I did reply though:

"Everything." This probably sounded more like 'everfing,' though, as my lip was swollen and kind of numb. "Wha' happened?"

"Death Eaters attacked your shop, Jess. You fought 'em off."

Yep, that was Charlie.

"Day weren' Deaf Ears," I explained, or attempted to. "I' wuf Day-ko Maffoy, an' Cab an' Goywe."

"Shh…don't try to talk yet. They were dressed as Death Eaters, so I suppose we have to assume they are…not very good ones, though. There was a broken window at the shop, and one of the glass cases, but George said he'd fix them. He and the Redferns are watching the place with Fred."

"You lef the _Refferns_ i' my fop?" I wanted to get up, but knew it'd hurt. "Wif' da _twinf?"_

"It's okay, Jessie. Mum's with them."

"Your muffer?" For some reason, that made me feel better.

"And some Aurors…Tonks is there."

_"Tonkff?"_ I did try to get up again out of sheer horror, but was thwarted. "Owww…"

"It's okay, she's guarding perimeter."

"Oh." It was then that I suddenly realized that I couldn't open my teeth. "Charry?"

"Yes?"

"Whaffck s'wrong wi'miteef?"

"They're spelled together. You have a broken jaw."

"Fukkat. I'ff got ta' warn Dumbwdow…"

I should perhaps address something. The conditioning provided by the dancing rubber chicken does not extend to situations where physical pain is involved. As a matter of fact, I swear like a Kenmore Kestrels fan when something on my person hurts. I may be a tradesman, but I will still use my inherent girly-ness as an excuse for growling like a wet kitten.

"You're not going anywhere until the Healers get your jaw fixed, Jessie. You…you could've been really hurt."

Concern? From a guy? A guy who did not on occasion claim me as an undiagnosed triplet or share a last name?

Wow.

"I'm ukkay. Iff juff… hurff a bit."

"The Healers left some potion for the broken jaw…you can have it in about another twenty minutes. The last one's still wearing off."

"Wha' wavvat fow?"

"Oh, the injuries…The burn on your arm…" Charlie pointed to some gauze wrapped around the spot. "It's from a hex, they know that much, but since it grazed you, it's been difficult to heal. That, and they aren't exactly sure what it was. May have been experimental, or botched in casting…they can't quite place it. Tonks even had a look before she headed to Diagon."

"Tonkff faw my ahm? Wha' she fink?"

"She fink –she thinks you were swinging too short a Beater-bat. That's at least possibly how your shoulder got dislocated."

"Diffocated?"

"Yeah…you pulled it good. I did that once in a Quidditch game –hurt like the very fires."

"I' duvvent hur too bad."

"Well…" He didn't look like he believed me. "In the meantime, they're suggesting that you drink a lot of water. Think you could get it down?" He poured a glassful and added a straw, then frowned for a second. A little spell put a convenient bend into the tiny tube, and Charlie lifted it so I could slurp down some of the stuff. It did make the coppery taste go away.

"Fankff, Charry."

"Feel any better? I know having teeth reattached hurts a lot…"

"Die loofum teef?"

"These three," he gestured, "were kind of loose, that's all. There was a little blood." That explained the coppery taste. "I…I was kinda worried about you, there, Jess."

"I'm ukkay."

"Erm…no, you're really not… your shoulder's dislocated and your arm has a hex and your jaw's broken and –you know, I think you may have broken the twins' record on impressive shiners…"

"Bu' I'm naw dead, juff hur…cubbie worf. Anna fop'ff ukkay…foe…"

"…I still worried," Charlie said quietly. "And believe you me, I am not about to let those snakes in robes get away with this. Every Auror in…well, all of the Aurors, y'know, they know about it. Dumbledore's been notified, Bill got in touch with your folks…"

_"Wha'?"_ I couldn't believe it.

"Your…your family. They were the first we thought to fireplace…is that bad? Why on earth wouldn't you want them to…?"

"Dey'ffink I can'handwe da fop…"

"Jessie, you whacked the Bludgers out of a Death Eater to protect your shop. If it hadn't been three against one, you'd've probably put him in St. Mungo's with that bat." I felt my cheeks redden from this unexpected praise. "I was under the impression you hadn't played any Quidditch." The little alarm clock on the bedside table went off and Charlie picked up a vial and uncorked it. "Potion time. It'll probably taste vile, so…" He poured more water into the glass for a chaser and got it ready in the other hand. "On three?" I nodded, and soon the stuff, which did indeed taste akin to what I'd imagine eight-week-old calamari to be like, was happily tingling my jaw back to normalcy. "Alright…supposed to wait five minutes…then I can unspell your jaw," Charlie was looking at a bit of parchment that looked to be covered in writing. "And then you have to drink loads more water."

"Whyffn't dere a Heyew…?"

"Oh…apparently there've been some injuries at one of the Quidditch games and I…kind of insisted on looking after you myself for a bit…didn't want to let some overworked git bodge something…" Charlie, I remembered, was an accomplished, if not precisely certified Healer from his time in Romania, but I didn't think there was anything all that bodgeable for him to worry about. It sounded good to me. "Bill was in here once for a hex and they charmed his hair blond."

"…Owsh ong-er tiwu can uffick ma daw?"

"What was that?" I pointed to my wrist and realized there was no watch on it. That startled me. I must've had a fairly expressive expression at that point, because Charlie reached over and patted my unscathed arm. "They're all here." He then proceeded to remove all of the five left-hand watches from his pockets and restore them in the exact order I wore them. In fact, the watch I wore highest up on my forearm, the chronometer with the calendar function on the left, that one had fit onto the very lowest part of his wrist. "I'll put the others on when your shoulder's fixed, okay?"

"'Kay."

"And it's…almost three and a half more minutes. Three-thirty-two, thirty-one… as a matter of fact, it is three and a half more minutes. Not long."

"Nope."

"Hey, I understood that." Charlie felt under my jaw in what a completely unromantic person could easily mistake for merely a practiced manner. In bed or not, I felt my knees going instantly back to their accustomed Charlie's-presence 'water' state. "Swelling's coming down nicely…try to talk a little."

"Mmm…what do I ssay?" It sounded a little hissy and sibilant, but then, my teeth were still closed. Charlie grinned. "I ssound like a ssnake…" A remarkable, twin-like idea occurred to me. My voice had gotten pretty damn funny with my teeth locked, but then I made it higher, and more girly, then remarked: "'I am You-Know-Who. Who took my denturesss?'" Charlie laughed suddenly and I realized how splendidly ludicrous, how outrageously witty that was. "'Luciusss! We sseem to be out of ssss –Spam!'" For some perverse reason, this was astonishingly funny. Charlie looked like he might be about to rupture one of his dishy organs.

"Jessie…if you do that voice for the twins, you will wind up on Wizarding Wireless, doing adverts for U-No-Poo inside of _ten minutes."_

"And if I leave in the 'Luciuss' crack we'll be hit with a libel ssuit. Sso it'ss not good to tell the twinsss…" Charlie tried to calm down, but it took a few moments.

"You sounded so …so bad, but so good, because…if You-Know-Who really sounded like that, it'd…well, it'd be humiliating for the Death Eaters, to start. You sounded like a cross between a Parselmouth with a lisp and a Celestina Warbeck impersonator from the drag bar. It was hilarious." I raised an eyebrow.

"Precccesssicccely _when_ have you heard a Celestina Warbeck impersssonator at the drag bar?"

"Oh, it was last week. The twins have these new Portkeys…"

And the dishy, adorable, splendid redheaded man proceeded to tell me of a new Wheezes product, a series of ostensible office supplies which, when touched with the naked skin, transported the user to a particularly seedy or disreputable location. "Fred was thinking of calling them Cubicle Carryoffs, for use on appalling office-mates, then George suggested Ministry Move-Out Gifts, for office parties and such when people get transferred or promoted without deserving it."

"Excussse to ssend one to Fudge," I lisped. "Ssscrimgeour would jusst blink and then keep frowning."

"I really should unstuck your jaw now…it's been loads longer than five minutes…"

"Pleassse!" A quick spell and I was back to my _usual_ ineffective voice. "Another sentence and we'd have an ad campaign meets political protest meets drag show. Nothing grand ever came out of me getting hurt before."

"Well…nothing grand ever came out of me getting charred like a steak before, until you decided to show me that burn salve and then I'd say some _very_ grand stuff happened."

"Yes. You smelled minty."

"No, I…I noticed your hands." Charlie turned the left one over and traced the lines in my palm with a fingertip. "You've got calluses from work, but they aren't rough. And…you _know_ they're really strong, especially for a girl –meaning that in the 'female person' way, incidentally, not the 'ickle firstie' way…anyway, when you put that salve on the burns on my arms, two things happened. One, they stopped hurting, for the first time in umpteen weeks. Dragon burns hurt for longer, because the flame is breath. The moisture is still in the flame, and it boils on contact, but there's still all the elements of …well, dragon spit in the burn. Something in that stuff neutralized the aftereffects, none of those burns have so much as tingled since. And the other thing…well…let's just say, I got to like your hands." Very gently, Charlie bent and drew my fingers down his jaw. "A lot." And then, very softly, he kissed my hand.

All manner of shivers were flying up and down my spine, like owls on Christmas or Seekers on Firebolts or…it was difficult to describe. That sort of gesture's a little rare for shopkeepers and craftsmen –which I more than suspect he knew. For just a moment, it didn't matter that I had a number attached to my name, or a famous name, for that matter, or that I had calluses on my hands and pliers in my pockets. I stopped filing myself under 'girl tradesman' for just a little bit, in favor of simply 'girl.'

And then I slipped my good hand into that deliciously red hair and drew him close. After all, it's quite difficult to kiss a guy when your other shoulder's dislocated.

But he fixed that.

Later.


	13. A Toad

Chapter Thirteen: A Toad

I got to go home later that evening, after a Healer had grudgingly pronounced me well enough to leave. Of course, I still looked fairly awful, with a terrifically black eye and some freshly healing cuts, as well as a bit of receding swell on my jaw. I'd look fine in about three hours, as the various potions and spells took effect. Those things do take time, but I didn't mind looking awful for a few hours, as long as I got home sooner. Normally they prefer it if you stick around until all the bruises and such are gone, but I was really rather worried about the shop. I also worried that the twins had gotten in touch with my relatives.

They had.

"Jamesina! Are you quite alright?" It was Uncle Gard, running down the steps by the open door as Charlie and I appeared. I was walking perfectly well, incidentally, but he still looked fairly white.

"I'm fine, Uncle! How's the shop?"

"You're worried about the shop? We were terrified!" He took me by each of my hands, inspecting them and then my face, which still had a lot of purple in it, and frowned. "Jims, this is bad…the Healers let you out?"

"I asked to be released as soon as possible. The bruises are fading now."

"Fading! My only niece looks like an eggplant and the bruises are fading, she says!" Charlie looked a little startled by Uncle Gard, but then, most people do. "We just arrived a minute or two ago. Your father and Pop are here, looking into things," he remarked, lowering his voice. "Keep stiff the lip, Jims, and it'll be alright." Charlie looked from my uncle to me and back, confused. "How bad is it, really?" Uncle Gard whispered.

"I'm _fine,"_ I nearly hissed, then smiled cautiously. Uncle Gard noticed the redheaded man with me and grinned.

"You must be Charlie, then. Go in with Jims, it'll look better."

We headed in, then, but not before Charlie whispered in my ear:

"Look better?"

"They might be scared to leave me here. Make your presence known." I left the door open behind us for my uncle, walking in as coolly as I could. "Hallo, all! I'm back."

"Jamesina," my father greeted, looking grim and, as usual, staring at my hands. "We have been worried. Are you quite alright?"

Uh-oh. Formality never boded well.

There were two kinds of meetings in my family. One was the calm, colloquial, friendly family dinner, in which business was mentioned only in cheerful anecdotes. We were relatives at such gatherings. The other was the Business Meeting, at which we were business partners and associates. We were colleagues then. Things were usually as polite as possible, but on occasion sharp words were used, which were then forgiven under the doctrine of 'it's business, not personal.' It was how Jas. W. Tickes and Sons had functioned from 1789 onward, and I had grown up with it. We were a business as much as a family.

My only fear was that the Weasleys, whose family seemed to operate solely on affection, would mistake the calculated order of Business Meetings for familial unfeeling. As it turned out, I needn't have worried. The entrance of Molly Weasley from my small kitchen interrupted said Meeting quite efficiently.

"Jessie, dear! Your face! Are you alright? For heavens' sake, someone get the poor girl a chair! Disgraceful, that's what I call it! And where were the Aurors when this happened? No security at all!"

"I've got your sons, Mrs. Weasley," I pointed out, knowing that she was hurting my argument terribly. If Grandfather and Dad decided it was too dangerous for me to keep up the shop alone…well… "Bill and Charlie were over here before I could so much as call for 'em."

"And a good job they were there, but still! If Cornelius Fudge had devoted half the time he spent researching ways to suppress sources speaking on You-Know-Who to improving civic protection, the boys might not have _had_ to come help you!" She then gave me one of the nicest, and most Ginnyesque smiles I have ever seen from someone besides Ginny. "Not that you really needed them, as I heard the tale. A _Bludger-bat_…"

"What's this of a bat, Mrs. Weasley?" Grandfather inquired, a smile turning up the ends of his long moustache. I caught a glimpse over her shoulder at Uncle Gard, whose moustache-ends were even higher.

"My twins told me that little Jessie defended her shop tooth and nail, and when teeth and nails gave out, she bashed in the masks of those Death Eaters with Fred's old Bludger-bat."

"It's true, sir," Charlie spoke up. "She might have killed them if they hadn't been hiding behind masks like cowards, sir."

Grandfather looked at me.

"Jamesina, is this true?"

"I…I _did_ hit them…and it _was_ with the bat…"

"How are your hexes, Jims?" Uncle Gard inquired.

"Fairly good. The boys have taught me some new since school."

"You think you can protect yourself and the shop, Jamesina?" my father asked, still looking determinedly at his hands.

"With my friends around? Of course I can."

"And us!" The piping voice of Tonks chirped in from the kitchen. She had a brownie in her hand and a smudge of chocolate above her lip. Her hair had gone a kind of depressingly mousy shade, but she was still the Auror we knew and liked. "Since this incident, it's been decided that at least four Aurors will be present in Diagon Alley at any given time. We'd like more, but that …requires a dispensation from the Chamber of Commerce to finance it." Grandfather chuckled.

"Well, what's preventing that? Jamesina, you're involved with the Chamber."

"On the lower floor."

"What was that?"

George repeated himself:

"On the lower floor, sir. It's bicameral now…those who rent premises are the lower floor, and only those who own their shops can run for elected seats."

"Is that how it is, then?" Grandfather frowned and tugged his lack of a beard. Men in my family tended to go clean-shaven until age twenty-five, as was the old-time custom in the Alleys, then add a kind of curl-ended moustache in addition to the long sideburns still in fashion among gents of the trade professions. Ian, as a Quidditch player, was clean-shaven and kept his sideburns to a more modern length, whereas my father had only trimmed the beard grown during his mourning into a sensible style for courting my stepmother and thereafter. When I was a little girl, he had resembled a bear or a convict more than a clocksmith, what little I'd seen of him. Grandfather had simply forgone the beard, as he insisted it caught crumbs, yet he would still occasionally pull at his chin as if he did have one. "Jamesina, how old are you again? Twenty? Or is that –yes, _next_ week is your birthday. I think that's quite old enough, don't you, Gardner?" Uncle Gard nodded enthusiastically.

"She's had wonderful figures so far, she protects the premises beautifully, and frankly, I don't think my waistcoat could stand it if we called Jims home. Between your daughter and your wife, James, it's really a miracle you aren't as fat as Father Christmas." My father looked tense and grim. Uncle Gard grinned, a smudge of brownie on his moustache as he took a second bite. "Eif' feller da fop fa' batch a'dese bowwies," he observed incoherently.

"Erm…all good points, Gardner. Well, now, Jamesina, let's have a look at the accounts. Master ledger, if you please."

Obediently, I brought the master ledger, a fat old tome dating back to some seven months prior to the opening of the Diagon Alley premises, and opened it to the most recent page. The figure at the bottom in black was a nicely impressive one, I thought, but I hadn't really taken the time to compare it to previous notations. Grandfather looked at it, permitting a raise of the eyebrows that told me nothing, and then read slowly backwards through some several pages to the spidery note: '_Under New Management –Jamesina Worthing Tickes, IV,' _that marked my takeover as manager of the Diagon Alley premises. I hoped the figures were suitable…if sales were down, I would be back in Hogsmeade talking to old ladies and making sure students didn't try to nick things on weekends. It would mean having to endure the dubious company of my father, the cute but sometimes-maddening baby twins, and my well-meaning stepmother, whose company I try somewhat to limit. I did _not_ want to go home.

I think this is usually the point where people say that my family and I have issues. Permit me to elucidate this as clearly as possible so the topic can be avoided in the future: Yes. We do. Get over it. It has nothing to do with the business of the shops or the state of our craft and is therefore of pitifully little importance, especially to those persons whose business it most decidedly isn't.

Anyway.

"Jamesina, your figures are very good. I might even go so far as to say remarkable." My cheeks warmed from Grandfather's praise. "As to the aspect of craft…Mr. Weasley, what would you say is your favorite item my granddaughter has designed?"

Charlie smiled. I liked him so much for staying calm. It was a weird situation.

"That's simple, sir. My brothers gave me a Tickes watch last Christmas that Jessie designed. I've worn it ever since." He obligingly undid and removed his fireproof dragon watch, handing it over to Grandfather, who eyed it speculatively through a glass.

"Any special features?"

"Fireproof, sir, also it doesn't conduct heat, which is a great convenience working with the dragon colonies in Romania…and also when barbecuing, which is a little more common, I expect. The hands and marks can be made to glow in the dark by pressing the knob there, and it winds very smoothly. It also happens to be quite exactly my size –I don't know if that's remarkable for a Tickes watch, but it is for every other watch I've ever seen."

"You are fond of it?"

"Immensely, sir. It's never been wrong, even though I've once or twice forgotten to wind it, I'm certain, and the design is such that it looks good with work clothes or formalwear."

"Did you like it from the outset?"

"Yes, of course, sir…who wouldn't?"

"Quite incidentally, when did you return from Romania?"

'_Why on earth would Grandfather want to know that?'_ I wondered.

"Just some weeks past, sir."

"And you are living across the Alley with your brothers?"

"Yes, for the next few months, perhaps a year or two. I'm writing a novel, and working for the twins in the meantime."

"Why not the dragons?"

"Funding cuts, for some part, sir. I'm of more help to the dragons here, drumming up interest with another book. That, and I have some…family commitments in London for the moment."

"You're a Potterist, aren't you?"

"Granddad!" I snapped suddenly. It was a surprising question, and a little unfair.

"Yes, sir, I do side with Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter in the matter of You-Know-Who. It's no secret."

Mrs. Weasley looked about to say something, but Grandfather's tone had grown serious.

"I understand that you and your brothers are on friendly terms with my granddaughter. Are you acquainted with the Tickes tradition of neutrality?"

"I have heard rumors, sir."

"Well, Mr. Weasley, the truth of the matter is that Tickes do not take sides in international conflicts. Long ago, our ancestors lost a relative in a war, and ever since we have stayed out of them. Cowardly, perhaps, but quite prudent, considering." I could tell Charlie was about to protest; likely that I could do whatever I wanted, being of age and all, but Granddad continued: "With this in mind, and considering that You-Know-Who has primarily concentrated his efforts within Britain and without the involvement of international governments…are you prepared, as a friend, to live across the street from Jas. W. Tickes and Sons under Jamesina's management?"

"Quite, sir. But doesn't she already manage…?"

"Yes, but she is currently an associate partner in the firm. There is a great difference." The old man turned to me then. "Jamesina, have you budgeted any funds for a greater share?"

"I have." Bargaining time.

"The value of the land parcel, the building, and the storefront is some twenty-one thousand Galleons. The Firm owns the land, leaving the cost of the shop itself at approximately ten thousand. Given your productivity of the past year, your current share in Jas. W. Tickes and Sons is worth about thirty-nine percent of the annual bottom line. If you can afford a stock purchase of …oh, nineteen thousand Galleons…then you would own the shop."

"Fifteen. The market is terrible with You-Know-Who on the loose. Anyone who can afford a good timepiece is too busy fortifying their home against Death Eaters."

"Eighteen-fifty. Your designs are outselling the classics in some markets and your diversification is bringing in more than the James Tickes Standard in either metal, not to mention the potential for postwar boom. It's a buyer's market."

"Sixteen. The postwar boom could take years and in the meantime there could be a severe civil conflict."

"Seventeen. You're an upstart apprentice with two black eyes."

"Sixteen-fifty. You're an outdated old coot with a fluffy moustache."

"Sixteen-seventy-five, chit."

"Sixteen-sixty, codger."

"Done, then." Granddad pulled a piece of parchment out of a drawer and wrote out my managerial certification for Gringotts as I wrote the check for the stock purchase, then pulled out the shop's deed from his coat pocket and handed it to me as I gave him the check. "The shop is yours, Jamesina. You're a full partner. And about blessed time."

"Precocious creature. I was twenty-one when I got partner," Uncle Gard observed.

"I was seventeen, but I was fully twenty-five before I managed a fireproof like this beauty. Your watch, Mr. Weasley," he smiled, handing Charlie's watch back to him. "Now, Jims, I really must inquire…are there any more brownies?" I got the plateful and Granddad took one eagerly before Mrs. Weasley interjected:

"Just a moment, Mr. Tickes. You two were _insulting_ each other just a moment ago…"

"It's business," Granddad explained.

"Not personal," I finished.

"The Firm has to function as a business. The family has to function as a family. Just because the exact same people are involved does not mean there are not two separate and entirely different entities." Granddad took a bite of brownie and sighed with pure, chocolate-induced delight. "Odd's fish, these are good. It does tend to startle people, the way we conduct business meetings…yes. Poor Siobhan thought we were simply mad the first meeting she sat in on –of course, Gardner _did_ call James a green-eyed nitwit, but then, he had ordered the wrong grain solder for the fourth time in a month, and my late mother Jamesina called me an incompetent nitwit and suggested buying a house-elf to do my job. As I remember it, Gardner had quite the chortle over _that_, and then James had to explain things to his poor girlfriend…good times!" Granddad can be a little…unusual. Did I mention that? "The point is, Mrs. Weasley, that we never do mean what we say in a business meeting as anything personal. It's all forgotten after the meeting ends –or as soon as we get brownies. Honestly, Jims, what on earth do you _put_ in them?"

"I didn't use baking chocolate this time, that might be it."

"They're smoother. I like them."

"Bloody brilliant, Jess," one of the twins observed. "We were kind of _wondering_ why the oven timer went off after Bill and Charlie took you to St. Mungo's."

"So it was _you_ got them out? Good job, there. I was getting a bit worried about the lot burning. Burnt chocolate smells something dreadful." I got out a little bucket of ice cream and began spooning it into dishes. "Anyone want some vanilla-fudge-whatsit to go with?"

"That sounds nice."

"I'll have some."

"Count me in for a bit, Jims," Granddad agreed, moving the chairs toward the table with the twins. "Sorry, but I don't believe I've ever gotten it straight –which of you is Fred, and which is George? It must be splendid to look alike –each can blame the other and noone ever gets punished."

"I'm Fred, sir."

"And I'm George."

"Yes, you are. For once they've not switched on you." I handed each twin a dish of ice cream and Charlie grinned at me.

"_She_ can tell them apart. I'm their brother and I can't sometimes."

"I'm their mother and they've pulled the switch on me. How do you do it?"

"It's really very simple, Mrs. Weasley." I leaned near her and whispered the secret in her ear. Would you believe she laughed? "Has everyone seen the redecoration in Knockturn Alley? Ruddy clever, those Easter Eggs."

"About that! Jamesina, you know the Redfern sisters, don't you? They were in your year at Hogwarts, mother's American…" Uncle Gard gestured, running out of details.

"Yes. I was over their shop less'n a week ago. See them all the time."

"You didn't look at the merchandise, I take it?" I shook my head.

"No. We were a bit busy at the time." Mrs. Weasley and Tonks had begun discussing the owl perch with Grandfather, and Bill was admiring the twins' newest clockwork toy, which I had been helping with. "What's wrong?"

"We think that there have been a few Tickes watches sold to them. If you wouldn't mind getting them back…" Charlie looked away, but I sensed he could still hear what my uncle was saying. "Stolen goods. And easily four generations old, counting you. They belong to the heir, of course, but considering the inheritance, you may need to …clean them up before you post them home."

"Of course! Mel mentioned that they'd been getting watches in; I was going to appraise for them on commission for spare money. So…some stolen inheritance?"

"I had the most interesting owl the other day," Uncle Gard observed, laying a finger beside his nose and speaking in a change-of-subject tone. "Headmaster Dumbledore wanted me to let him know if anyone was caught nicking, for discipline. He does like _order_." Then he winked at me. "You know what to _watch_ for, Jims. Oh, and Severus Snape sent us an owl, too. He'll do the alchemic that Pop wanted."

I nodded and grinned. Uncle Gard and I have always understood each other perfectly. Dung Fletcher must have really loused up…I wondered whose watch he'd got. And the praise from Professor Snape probably impressed Grandfather a lot. They know each other fairly well –I wouldn't say Snape's a family friend, as my father hates him for some reason and my brother once flunked his class, but he does get on well with Grandfather. That, and praise doesn't exactly flow from the Head of Slytherin, if you know what I mean. I think I can remember two comments addressed toward me that weren't negative in all my years at school. One of them was 'I see you've mended it,' referring to an alarm clock he assigned as my detention, and the other was 'That was faster than I expected,' when I fixed a Snitch for Slytherin's Quidditch practice. He may very well be a perfectly nice person. I just haven't seen any proof of it.

"Would anyone care for some hot chocolate? It's a little bit cold outside."

"I'll get it, Jess," Charlie smiled, taking the kettle from me and filling it. "Rest your arm a bit."

"What I don't understand, though," Grandfather was talking with Mrs. Weasley, "is where all the arrests are coming from. Sure, the fellow from Knockturn might've been a bit dodgy, but Stan Shunpike? That boy couldn't wind his own watch! Scrimgeour's mad if he thinks this will improve morale, this martial-law attitude."

"I think it's a shame. Of course, almost anyone is an improvement on Cornelius Fudge."

"Oh, yes. I swear, our Jims has designed more intelligent buckles than that idiot. By the by, those little Pygmy Puffs your boys have –my little grandsons adore them. And their clockwork mice! Delightful!"

"Your granddaughter helped with those! I have one, but it offended Hermione's cat last summer, so it's currently unwound…"

"Well, they are meant to offend the cats, I think, though our Quintus is so blessed lazy, it's about time something chased him a little bit. Getting fat, you know, dreadfully bad for cats. It's my grandsons –they've been feeding him anything they don't like. We can never catch them at it, and they're twins, so if we aren't sure which one's guilty, we have to let both go. I've thought of punishing both…will the one rat the other out?"

"Nope! Every time I tried to punish my pair, they just kept mum and stood in the corner together, chattering in twin-speak."

"Yours did that, too? Robby and Davy have maybe a sentence in English each, but they jabber on in that little code of theirs…"

"That's said to be common in toddler twins. I'm still none too certain Fred and George aren't still using theirs-"

"Jims used to have an imaginary friend she talked to in her own language…"

"So did Charlie, only his was a pretend friendly dragon called Box."

"Jims' was a unicorn that turned invisible if we looked. She told us that was why we couldn't see him."

"Ginny had a toy unicorn!"

During all this, Fred, George, Charlie and I ate brownies, avoiding each other's eyes. Bill, Tonks and Uncle Gard tried not to snort, while my father quietly slipped out and left with some Floo powder.

"Really? Gardner's favorite was an enormous stuffed toad with a jingle-bell in its belly called Mr. Tinks."

"Bill had a toad like that. I finally cast Silencio on the bell, but he cried, so I had to take it off-"

Now everyone but Tonks looked uncomfortable as the two nattered on. For her part, she accepted a fifth brownie and tried her best to be ladylike, though Mr. Tinks resulted in her burying her face in a napkin out of mirth. The grownups seemed perfectly oblivious to how awful they were being…but then, it's nowhere close to the first time this sort of nonsense has occurred. I think everyone must endure at least one session of parent-y nattering before the age of twenty or else they don't blush enough and their heads explode. It's all for our own good…or something.

But the evening was better after that. My father'd left.


	14. A PageBreak

Chapter Fourteen: A Page-Break

We had barbecued chicken for dinner that night, incidentally. Charlie has a recipe that's very good –it involves soaking the chicken in a sort of marinade for half a day first and then cooking it very slowly. It's also important to turn it over quite a lot, and if you put a metal kebab stick through each piece, it cooks faster.

I really don't know why I put that bit in just now. It was remarkably tasty, though (The chicken, not the paragraph.) Well, it does make sense to mention what we ate. After all, Granddad and Uncle Gard did stay and eat with us, as did Mrs. Weasley and Tonks and Bill. Apparently one or another of the elder Weasley boys has completely unrealistic expectations when it comes to ordering and preparing dinner –he had enough food ready for twelve of us, let alone the five I think he originally expected. Even more luckily, I bake brownies in week's-worth batches, so there were lots of them. It was great to have so many people there, and everyone got along so well, I kinda wished we had dinner-parties more often.

Of course, I'd prefer it if I could throw a dinner party without two black eyes and a sore collarbone, or Death Eaters getting at my shop. But that goes without saying.

I'm not sure when I finally went to bed, but by then I was tired enough that I wound up sleeping in my shirt and trousers. Actually, I do that on a fairly regular basis. What was odd, I thought, was hanging my vest on the bedpost. How I got it _there_, of all places…

Anyway.

I knew that with the kerfuffle of the preceding day, there would be a nice fuss made over the shop, so I wore my red shirt and some new corduroy trousers, and a burgundy suede vest instead of a brown or black one. I really wonder why more people don't wear suede vests outside the trades –they're quite lovely, and they don't wear out quite so quickly as cloth ones do. Of course, leather lasts the longest; though I've been told denim is-

Oh, honestly! If I could keep myself on the topic for longer than three sentences, this thing wouldn't take so danged long to write.

Oh, and to get it out of the way, it wasn't my idea to write this thing. It all happened long enough ago to not be very relevant, though I suppose bits of what happened are kind of funny. It'd just be easier if I didn't try to turn it into a cookbook or fashion magazine every thirty seconds.

Oh, well.

The business was, indeed, remarkably good that day, though most of the people who came in had originally just come in to check on me and get some details on What Had Happened. But then, of course, some of them noticed clocks or watches they liked, and then they bought them. I did a number of layaways for people who didn't have the cash on them (or at all, since I take Gringotts checques,) and I also got quite a few walk-in repair jobs. It's funny that way, people come in for gossip and then 'while I'm here, this watchband has thrown a pin,' or some such little thing. What's even funnier –some people have gotten attached to their watches and like to observe the repairing personally. I've never minded that, in fact, I can see the point of it myself. I hate to let my personal timepieces out of my sight, too, and the process is usually fascinating, especially when it's gears or a really tiny pin.

That, and they sometimes have the added pleasure of watching me work with my special specs on –I look quite like an insect once I finish and look at them, or so I'm told. It's common for me to look up and get laughed at, which I think is hilarious, and then the customer and I have a fine lark while I get the great insect-y glasses off. They're very nice, those specs…sort of fit over my regular ones, with different lenses that I can flip down and up, and a few swivel ones. The oculist who makes my regular glasses did them as well, and luckily my regular ones look rather more normal.

Darn. Where was I?

Oh, yes. After I closed the shop, it occurred to me to go visit the Redferns and see what Uncle Gard was on about. I had guessed from his eyebrow-raising and Knowing Looks that the triplets had been getting some stuff they shouldn't, likely watches, and I had noticed Dung Fletcher dropping by their back entrance more frequently. I've bought from the fellow, but sometimes I don't trust his light-fingered attitude. Sam, Ken and Mel are trustworthy, of course, but you try identifying stolen property when you have an inventory of completely random and mainly secondhand items. I wouldn't _ask_ them to keep checks on that sort of thing; it'd be almost impossible.

And it wasn't as if they didn't have a reputable appraiser pricing their new acquisitions once a month or so. I'd just go a day or three early.

I know it must seem a bit odd that a Tickes would associate with a Knockturn pawnshop. Certainly, there were those who'd have thrown perfect fits, had they known. A lot of old Diagon Alley shops (and even more new ones,) have a real snob problem with Knockturn. Some of the worst pureblood-bigots, the ones who want a genealogy before they hire a stock boy; they'd rather shine Hermione Granger's boots than work with a Knockturner. It doesn't stop there, either. There's a games shop that looks down its' nose at Weasley's because they're a new business, but they get all grovelly when I come in, because I'm a Tickes. Then there's Florean Fortescue, who could care less about blood or how old your shop is, but he gets very nervous when a Knockturn shopkeeper drops in. He's not sharp with them, or anxious they'll steal (how can they?) but that Alley simply sets him a bit on edge.

Of course, Quality Quidditch doesn't give a flying wombat in hell, but that's partly because the only place that'll let them hold Fantasy League nights anymore is _in_ Knockturn. I enjoy a good match, yes, and I support my brother all the way, but those fantasy-Quidditch nuts are just a bit –well, nuts. One fellow came into the shop once, offering me eight Galleons for Ian's _exact_ shoe and glove sizes. I hesitated for a second, because I don't often _think_ of what bloody shoe size Ian wears, and the nutter upped the offer to ten. Apparently it was very important. I told him, gave the money to England National's charity fund, and had a grand lark telling the twins about the whole thing.

You know, just to prevent that happening again, Ian wears twelve and a half shoes, eight even gloves, a medium jersey, medium-long robes, and thirty-eight-inch inseam pants. Oh, and a six and a quarter inch watchband.

I know this because I did most of the laundry at our house growing up. Also, Ian had a very unfortunate tendency to leave change in the pockets of said thirty-eight-inch inseam pants for years. I do hope he's learned not to do that since, as not everybody returns pocket change they find. I do, because it might have a hex on it and I don't like granola.

Do not ask. We were somewhat odd as children.

At any rate, I work with the Redferns because I like them. They're friendly, they're always willing to help their neighbors, they're remarkably good at Gobstones and never in my life have I seen them treating somebody else like rubbish –except certain people who I suspect _are_ rubbish. Like Becky Feathersham. Sam Redfern does an impression of her that makes people wet themselves. Of course, she'd not do it to Becky's face. Becky might be a horrid little sheep of a person, but that's no reason to be a git to her.

And then there's Marietta Edgecombe -rotten little wench with horrible skin and a disgusting simpery attitude. She was a fifth-year when Umbridge took over school, we were sevenths. Something the little snip did, got a great awful jinx-rash all across her head. I couldn't stand the bint –she made a horrible fuss over her family's connections and let fly these little jabs at anyone younger or poorer than she was, like 'I hope your father's _bookstore_ doesn't close, with all the trouble in Knockturn Alley and all,' to little Mary Nooke. Now, yes, Nooke's might sell some works of questionable morality, but that's no call to riff on a kid for their folks' business. I despised that little twerp…but Sam and Mel Redfern arranged to get her some Muggle skin products for the rash, and didn't even mark up the prices. They're a lot nicer than I am, in many ways, and a lot nicer than a lot of the people who treat them like dirt. Becky Feathersham spread a horrid rumor about Sam in our fifth year, but none of the trips so much as mentioned it. Sam just refined and improved her Feathersham act, entertaining the whole dorm whenever the hosebeast was out. I made Becky's watch ten minutes slow while she slept, for a lateness detention with Snape.

It's strange how awful women can be to each other without ever letting on. Men at least are horrid to one another right up front, and then they fight, and then it's done and everyone has a butterbeer. Unless it's a feud, but those kinds of men usually wouldn't like butterbeer.

It was just such a man that I found in my friends' shop when I got there.

"I don't care what the sign says! This watch stopped working and I want a refund!"

"Sir, we can't do that. All of our products are sold 'as is.' If you like, I could issue a receipt for store credit, but we do not offer refunds under any circumstances."

"That's ridiculous! I want to speak to the owner!"

Sam's patience was thinning. I had shared a dormitory with her long enough to know. If it hadn't been so shatteringly funny, I might have intervened by, say, sneezing or dropping my toolbag. But it _was_ funny, so I stayed back and enjoyed it a little more.

"Sir, I _am_ one of the owners." That took the little man aback, especially as Sam's eyebrows were going a full shade darker. She's got to learn to watch that. "Now, printed here on the sales receipt you yourself signed, you will notice _once again_ the terms of service. _There are no refunds._ I suggest you either exchange the watch for another, or have it fixed at a credible establishment. Tickes and Sons is just around the corner."

"It costs money if you didn't buy it there," the man grumbled. Sam made a 'this is my problem?' gesture and her eyes actually changed colors. He saw this and jumped slightly. "What the deuce?"

It was at that moment that I recognized him, bowler hat and all. I suspect posterity might pardon the events that ensued. After all, to discover that not only was Cornelius Fudge a galloping tightwad, but that my watch-stopping charm had worked, leaving him in full grovel before a set of half-blood Knockturn triplets…well…

I lost control, and fairly spectacularly, too. In fact, if you visit the Redferns' place today, I bet there are still some echoes of riotous laughter caught in the eaves somewhere. Fudge jumped about a foot, but then, who wouldn't be startled to see a twenty-year-old girl in tradesman's attire and a greatcoat positively cracking up by the door of your local pawnbroker's? Of course, if it had been nice laughter, like the way I'd laugh at a good joke, it would be one thing. Needless to say, this was not nice laughter. 'Mocking cackle' sounds about right for the noise I made. One might forgive that; one might not, depending on point of view.

What I said to him next, I'll confess, was even less pardonable.

"Great Merlin's ghost, Minister! Forget to wind your watch?" I'm still a little shocked at how I felt just then. "Too busy with a Bulgarian minister what can't speak his own language?"

"Jessie?" Sam looked fairly surprised as well. Her eyebrows were auburn.

"Miss Tickes?"

"You remember _my_ name, Fudge-it?" I can't explain why I said all this, but I'm putting it down anyway. "Funny, you couldn't recall my mother's. Why me? Aren't I a _mick_ _Mudblood too?"_

And then…I suppose I sort of stepped forward, and the next thing I knew, Fudge had gotten out of the shop. It's sort of hazy, but I remember breathing very hard, and Sam coming up beside me, trying to pat my arm. I yanked away from her, and then there was some yelling, and some crying, and then me sitting by their wood stove, a cup of Mel's tea in my shaking hands.

Now, years later, I realize that I did lose control. Fudge had just been replaced by Scrimgeour and wasn't really a threat to anyone, but I was still angry –no, furious with him. Maybe it was stress, with the shop being attacked and my winding up at St. Mungo's the night before, buying the shop at last and Charlie meeting my family…maybe it was just me getting Ticked off…or maybe…that bastard didn't even know her name!

_Manuscript breaks off._


	15. A Narrator

Chapter Fifteen: A Narrator

I wasn't really sure what was going on between Jessie and Mr. Tickes –her father, that is. He never once looked her in the eyes. Come to think of it, he didn't seem to care at all. I mean, if Death Eaters had attacked the twins' shop, my mother would have personally Apparated to the scene and started shooting hexes at anything in a mask. Jessie's father looked distracted, even disinterested in the fact that his only daughter could have died.

That struck me as very weird.

I knew what had happened to Jessie's mother and great-grandmother had probably put a strain on their relationship somehow. A lot of families had never gotten over what happened with You-Know-Who years ago. Some old clans had divided along so-called 'pureblood' and 'blood traitor' lines, like the Blacks, and some had simply been cut down to members in the single digits. There were only about five Longbottoms left, after all, the Prewetts were gone except for Mum, and I think there were eight Tickes altogether left, counting Jessie's little half-brothers and stepmother. Of course, theirs was what the obnoxious 'purebloods' considered a 'trade family, pure of blood but rough of hand.' Gentlemen merchants –gentlewomen in Jessie's case, good enough to invite to large parties but not quite good enough for heirs to marry. It was an interesting place to be, in the corrupt hierarchy that existed among bigots. I'd assumed the Tickes were either pureblood or fairly close to it, I never asked; but apparently a slight degree of 'impurity' was tolerable in trade families, who were bourgeois class anyway…very strange.

I'd been making little charts on this topic, as bigotry's important to the plot of my new novel. Did you know, for example, that Serapion Nott defined seven separate and distinct levels of pure- to Muggle blood in 1938? It's an awful, but fascinating thing, the way those tossers think. My family was level six –first-generation half-bloods and vehement blood traitors, at that point, though at times I suspect Percy qualified as a one, given his Ministry activity. I assumed Jessie's family were fives or higher…maybe lower depending on individuals. Simply having a Muggle-born friend was enough to take you down a rung on the Nott ladder…Jessie must've been a three for that. Of course, the trade family idea put a skew on it…it's difficult to do your shopping if you boycott everything without the _toujours_ _pur_ stamp of approval.

I assure you, I do not in any way agree with this warped system. It just came up around the time I'm writing about, and I figured it'd be best to put it near the front so you can flip to it. Only total buggers actually _believed_ in the Nott system, but a lot of people used it, usually in conjunction with the Gringott's Report or Aurory Blotter and then it was for seating charts and whatnot. Rank is a stupid system. In my opinion, seating should be based on who arrives first, except when there are rows, when the tallest should sit in back and the shortest in front. That at least makes sense.

As the twins had explained it to me, Jessie was in strong demand among the heirs of other trade families. Apparently there were many heirs to businesses who would have loved to contract a marriage merger with James W. Tickes and Sons, and a number of said heirs would have enjoyed it for other reasons, too. And why not? Jessie was a brilliant clocksmith, she had a wonderful shop, a good business, and she was beautiful, even in shopkeeper-drag.

Actually, I kind of liked the clothes she wore to work…they made her look capable and friendly. That, and sometimes she doesn't button the shirts to the top, which…well…I like that.

Of course, when I expressed these opinions to the twins, they were not exactly pleased that I was aware of her physical attractiveness.

"So? She's our friend."

"She's our _age_."

"Why would you be looking at her, anyway?"

"Guys, please…I just noticed-"

"Noticed our _friend_, yeah."

"Been browsing the cradle long?"

"Oh, _what?_ She's got a brother older than me! I'm only-"

"She'll be twenty next week, you know."

"Yes. We've been designing something new."

"A truly perfect birthday present, in our opinion."

"I take it this will beat the Bullshit Detector Quills you made for Percy."

"Well…as much as anything _could_ beat that."

"No, this is truly remarkable." George opened a drawer and took out what resembled an elegantly embroidered ladies' handkerchief. "We call it the 'Subtle Escape.'"

"…What _is_ it?"

"Observe." George blew his nose in it and disappeared, reappearing a second later on the couch across the room. "If anyone gets too close, or too obnoxious…"

"Or _tries something,"_ Fred remarked darkly.

"Jessie just needs to snort a bit and she can escape to us."

"And you're both _so_ safe with women." I gave them a smirk, which really wasn't quite fair. They were good guys. But then, what good guy would ever admit to it?

"_Jessie's_ safe with us."

"She's like an older Ginny with different hair and less Quidditch talent."

"And specs…really, who'd snog a girl with specs? Wouldn't you bump your nose?"

"No, you sort of tilt…" Both brothers raised their left eyebrow as I demonstrated. "What?"

"You _like_ Jess, Charlie?" George asked calmly.

"I…well…" I couldn't very well lie, could I? "Well, _yeah!_ She's wonderful. We went out the other night, and…" For that one moment I felt perfectly horrible.

"You know, I reckon Ron's going to have this same problem at some point," Fred observed suddenly. "Methinks the Boy Who Lived fancies our Ginny."

"Only our version's a bit backwards." George looked thoughtful. "On the upside, we do more or less trust you. On the downside, it'd be very weird having a stag chat if your mate were our girl Friday."

"Yeah. I'm not certain I'd like to know what Jessie's like in bed."

"Or how she looks naked?" I suggested.

"Pshaw, we know _that_ already," George remarked dismissively. I almost jumped off the chair.

"What –_how?_ You… _her-?"_

"The family brilliance, George, look at it." Fred grinned. "We were testing a product once."

"And she made us eat cold porridge for two meals after that, neither of which were breakfast.

"Oh." I still felt a bit…I don't know, cheated, curious…it was weird.

"Brothery feeling aside, Charlie, if you do wind up dating her, she is _not_ bad-looking."

"Fred!"

"What? S'true."

"Yes, but…well…we can trust _you_, right?" I nodded vehemently. "Not in the 'don't shag our friend' sense, because you never know, Fred, it just might be her idea…and we wouldn't cockblock a bloke, would we? Jess'd resent it if we gave her fella orders of Do and Don't."

"She'd have our pelts. Just 'cause she's a girl is no call to…well." Fred gestured vaguely. "But you hear me, Charles Weasley. If you _ever_ make that dear girl cry; older than us or not, we're two to your one and we will not hesitate for one second to knock you from here to Hogsmeade like a Bludger…and then set Gin on your sorry carcass."

"And maybe Mum, too, if there's any tissue left."

"That went without saying, guys."

"Well, maybe, but we still felt like saying it."

"That way, you can't accuse us of unfair play if we have to kill you later."

"What if Jessie does _me_ wrong, then?"

"Charlie! Are you mad?"

"We'd _never_ strike a girl!"

I waited as they looked at each other and grinned before concluding in unison:

"…We'd get Ginny!"

You know, I worry about Ginevra. She really is too close to the twins sometimes. Of course, that likely means a reduction in my big-brother protective duties. One time she felt Ron was asking too many questions about her love life and…this really isn't the sort of thing I should repeat, you know. Ron might be humiliated.

Ask Ginny sometime. It's 'the time with the gumboots,' if she's not sure which anecdote you mean. Besides, I bet she'd tell it better. Maybe if you offend her, she'll demonstrate.

"But you two don't mind if I ask her out again? 'Cause, see…I really do like her. When she was in St. Mungo's, I was just about out of my head… see, when the Death Eaters were in Knockturn, she looked so angry… I didn't think they'd come after her as well."

"She's held up pretty damned well, hasn't she?" George observed. "Wait. What was that about Knockturn?"

"…Jessie and I were there when the Death Eaters were vandalizing it. I thought you knew…"

"And _why_ were you down there?"

"We…we were heading back from Muggle London, and Jessie knocked on the Redferns' back door and they called us in…"

"The Redferns are a little odd, I think," Fred remarked. "I mean, I'm a twin, right? So normally I can spot which of another set of twins is which. The Patil sisters are easy, the Flume brothers at Hogsmeade are harder, but you can still tell…what's the deal with the Redfern girls?"

"Maybe triplets are harder?" I ventured, shrugging.

"Oh. That must be it, then. I miscounted." Fred smirked. "I know triplets must be different…but they seem to shift on me. I thought I thought the one was cute, but then it turned out to be another I was talking to."

"Jessie said they're Metamorphmagi," George reminded, to which Fred snapped his fingers and nodded. "I bet they think it's a great lark, confusing us guys to hell."

"If you two had a Time-Turner, you could really make their heads spin," I joked. My brothers stared, their eyes widening and narrowing in a familiar, frightening way. "Oh, gods, no! I wasn't serious!"

"Polyjuice, then?" Fred asked George.

"Who's the lost Weasley?" George asked Fred.

"We'll use a real one. Hogwarts lets out fairly soon."

"You lot can't get through the day without a prank, can you?" I noticed a Muggle ballpoint of the sort Jessie sometimes keeps around and went to pick it up –it exploded.

"Nope!"

"We really can't, can we?"

With my hand suddenly blue and sticky, I should have been sort of irritated with my mad little twin brothers. Except, see, I've lived with my mad little twin brothers since they were mad little twin babies, and now I'm rather used to it.

"That seems a bit like Muggle-baiting to me, boys. Could you explode quills instead of ballpoints next time, maybe?"

"Oh, that's the grand part," George smiled, put on a potholder, and picked up another one, setting it in the center of the table on some newsprint. "These aren't for the shop. It's called a Blood Traitor Ballpoint."

"Uh…why?"

"You're a Weasley, right?" Fred reached out and touched the pen, which appropriately exploded. "If a so-called pureblood picks one of these beauties up, it'll explode on him."

"Thus marking any potential sympathizers of You-Know-Who."

"Good idea, but…it explodes when _we_ touch them. I mean, except maybe for that little twerp Percy…"

"_We_ know we're sensible."

"Besides, how can a spell detect political opinion? I mean, and still fit in a ballpoint? Those buggers are _small_."

"Is there some spell on the ink, to make it stick like this?" I rubbed at the stuff with a rag, but it only seemed to blur and spread.

"No…ballpoints are just like that."

"Remember when ickle Ronniekins got ahold of one of Dad's?"

"Of course!" I even had a picture of the occasion someplace. "He had a blue tongue for weeks!"

"And Mum thought we'd done it…"

"Hey, now that the idea's been useful, think she'd make us up that one punishment?"

"How much else did we do that she didn't catch us?"

"Point. We'd still owe about six years' back groundings and extra chores."

"Best to stay quiet, then."

"I only picked it up because I thought it might be one of Jessie's…or did she get you these?"

"Um…" The twins looked sheepish for a moment, then George smirked. "Actually, we gave the ones she has to her."

"Really? But that would have to mean…are they spelled like these? I mean, they're the exploding kind?"

"Yep." Fred grinned. "Meaning that…?"

It added up. I'm sorry, but I really can be a little slow on the uptake.

"Jessie's a mix, then?"

"Well, obviously."

"I thought she just about had to be…well, her shop is famous and all. Wouldn't her family have had to stay pureblood to keep that up?"

"How could they? Just about nobody really is anymore."

"It just doesn't come up very often…when you're terminally late and need a watch fixed, are you really going to ask for a genealogy from your clockmaker?"

"In fact, I suspect that's how a lot of the shops here have stayed respectable with our crowd and the snob sort alike. It simply doesn't come up."

"But if Jessie's not a blood traitor…why did they attack her shop?"

Fred leaned on his hand for a moment, stroking his chin as he thought. The blue ballpoint-ink beard he gave himself was truly remarkable, but I felt it more polite not to interrupt his observations:

"Well, the way I figure it, they must have had some better reason to murder her mum and great-grandmother. I mean, her mum was Muggle-born, yes, but simply killing Muggle-borns isn't a good enough reason. That, and her great-grandmother _was_ a pureblood."

"Was she?"

"Yeah. Jamesina Switch was an Auror before she married, one of the first women in the profession. Her brother Emeric Switch wrote Transfiguration textbooks." George walked around from behind the table and saw his brother. He jumped slightly, but, like me, said nothing. It was becoming rather better as Fred scratched. "Jessie's old books are inscribed. See, she lent me the sixth-year one…" George retrieved a remarkably pristine textbook, much nicer than any the twins had owned. In fact, I think they got Bill's and my old Transfiguration books –same author, but more than a little wear. "There, by the frontispiece."

In an elegant, firm hand was written: 'To my little grand-niece, study hard, practice a lot, and don't worry if things don't go right the first fifty times. –Great-uncle Emeric.'

"Very good advice."

"Yes…and she does follow it. I have to take this back sometime…is it dinner yet?" George closed the book and looked at his watch. "Not quite, but we may as well bother her."

"Jess could do with some bothering, yes. …Hey, Charlie?"

"What?" I tried not to react to Fred's blue beard, eyebrows, hair and nose.

"Do you think Jessie fancies you back?"

"I…I think she might."

"We'll find out," George announced with a sense of finality I have learned to be frightened of. "Come on, Baron de Rais, it's almost dinnertime."

"Baron de wha?" Fred asked, still oblivious.

And yes, the twins do play jokes on each other. In fact, I think the reason they're so good at pranking might be years of one-upmanship. So we headed off, George, Bluebeard the Dread Weasley and I, toward Jessie's shop. In spite of the twins' obvious plans to 'find out,' I was feeling rather pleased to have their approval. It felt less sneaky.

When we got to the shop, it was closed, but the twins can enter Jessie's wards. They did so, letting me in as well, and this time I avoided Jessie's ballpoint pens. An odd noise at the back made me turn.

Framed in the window of Jessie's back door was one of the Redfern sisters, looking shaken and frantically waving for us to come outside.


	16. A Key, Or the Lack Thereof

Chapter Sixteen: A Key, Or the Lack Thereof

"What's wrong?"

I realize that is something of a cliché, but then, when a twenty-year-old triplet with four different hair colors at once is waving at you to come with her, there's really precious little else one can think to say.

"It's…you have to see it. It's _too_ good!"

That made me worry a little less. If Jessie had met with some mishap and it was funny, the odds were great that she wasn't greatly harmed. But then again, the twins had considered the time Ron hexed Percy's undershorts to shrink '_too_ good,' so the scale of harmless to not could be a little skewed.

I shouldn't have worried. It really was fairly choice, as embarrassing incidents tend to go.

Just to take a moment before relating the events, however, I must point out two seemingly unimportant but fairly relevant little facts. Point the first: I am six feet and an inch or so tall, to Jessie's five feet and a half. Point the second: when Jessie speaks deprecatingly about the fact that her hands are fairly large, I make no attempt to disagree with anything other than the idea that such a trait is a bad thing. She _does_ have unusually superlative hands. They're quite graceful, extremely adept, and I've seen her do things with them that I couldn't dream of attempting. But she is right; they _are_ kind of big –at least, for a girl, that is. Mine are about the same size.

Anyway, it was to my great surprise and relief that my brothers and I encountered a very ruffled, very red-faced little clocksmith, perched on a four-legged stool with her arms crossed. A pair of very large and very shiny handcuffs were locked around her wrists, and she did _not_ look happy.

"Anyone know a decent unlocking spell?" a Redfern, I think Samantha, asked, giggling.

Jessie muttered something that sounded vaguely horrible. The phrase 'wicked hags' was all I could understand.

"What happened?" George asked, trying to be a gentleman by covering his grin with his hand. Fred was simply biting his fist to keep from chortling, which did not improve the ballpoint-ink beard look he had going on.

Jessie mumbled something incomprehensible and probably improper, given how she blushed even redder upon the utterance. Another Redfern –I think Melanie, laughed:

"We got a pair of dodgy old handcuffs in, and Jessie had just fixed the lock on the one side, so to test it, she put it on-"

"On herself…" Kendra looked a bit sheepish. "And then it wouldn't undo, so she locked the first one on, to compare, and then once she realized she was…well…"

"Stuck," Samantha looked politely apologetic, though the smile remained. "I'm really sorry, Jessie, but I didn't know where your tools were, and they were in there, and they _all_ jus' sorta _followed_ me…"

It seemed that my ladylike little clocksmith really did have a good grasp of how to swear. George looked impressed.

"That's a Quidditch profanity, Jess!"

"Yes, Forge, it is. Could someone _kindly_ get me the number six and nine picks from the second drawer of my upstairs work-desk and the size five locking pliers from the basement?" She said this as if it were perfectly obvious.

"You can pick locks?" I asked.

"Yes, _of course_ I can pick locks! What kind of a wretchedly crap clocksmith do you take me –owk!" Her body suddenly went rigid and thrashed slightly, the way you do when you sneeze hard, with eyes shut tight and teeth locked like –well, the locking pliers. The twins panicked, but the Redferns just held her on the stool.

"It's okay! She did that before, just go get the tools!" Kendra commanded. George took off with Fred close behind. I started for the door, then turned, then went to touch Jessie's arm. She had stopped shaking.

"You alright?" I asked. What a dumb question.

"Yes. Fine. Good. Don't. Touch. Yet. –_G'ow!"_ The shaky thing happened again and I pulled my hand away. I noticed the Redferns were only hanging onto her by her clothes.

"Best not to touch skin, Weasley," Mel observed. "Soon as we get the cuffs off of her, she'll be fine. A little tired, but fine."

"Is it…Jessie, do you have seizures?"

"Um –yes! The –the Curse!" Samantha gestured expansively. "The –Tickes …family twitching curse…acted up a few times when we were in school." She smiled knowingly.

"It has to do with her cuffs!" Kendra added. "The hands, see, if the …the veins get tight, or, uh, restricted in any way, it can cause the shakes."

"We could always tell when poor Jess was due for new shirts, the cuffs'd tighten and twitch-twitch-twitch…" Melanie shook her hands in the air. "Twitching Tickes. Might be why she never mentioned it, poor kid." She set a hand on Jessie's shoulder and for the weirdest reason, the clocksmith attempted –and not too badly, to bite the triplet's wrist.

"Got your tools, Jess!" George announced, running in with the bag she took on house calls. "I wasn't sure which one was the thingy-ga-whatsit, so I just grabbed the whole lot. …Jessie, are you okay?"

"Just almost fell off the stool, is all," Sam explained. George blinked, but unrolled the tool-bag. Fred appeared at that moment with a batch of brownies. Everyone stared at him.

"…Okay, maybe they _won't_ help you out of those, but tell me you couldn't use one now!" Jessie grinned and he held a small one out for her to bite. The twitching abruptly stopped and the clocksmith let out a long sigh, perfectly content. A moment of chewing later, she plucked a couple of picks from the tool-bag and freed herself within five seconds, easily.

"Thanks, guys," she sighed. "Um…Sam? I'll take the cuffs."

"But you just got-"

"Yesh, I got shtuck. And knowing what they're like, I think they're safer with me than anyone else present." She pointed at me, or, rather, just past my right shoulder. "Including you. Oh, and the footy-ones as well." Sam shrugged and picked up an ancient-looking pair of leg shackles, the same mechanical make as the wrist pair, but in a darker, almost rusty finish.

"I'll shine these up, so they match. Fifteen Galleons each pair?"

"That works." Jessie reached into a little bag and took some money out, pressing it into Sam's hand without so much as counting it. I realized the bag wasn't even half empty afterward, and it was kind of nice to see the twins didn't care. Sam pointed her wand at the cuffs and used a spell so they shone –evidently one of the failed attempts to get Jessie free had had otherwise positive effects. Jessie stopped suddenly and looked at the bag. "Dammit, now I don't want to cook. Gred an' Forge, you want to go buy some feast?"

"Huh?"

"Here," Jessie wobbled over to George and handed him the bag. "Go get food with this. The cooked kind. Something with a side of cooked vegetables, the green sort." She appeared to think and nearly fell down. "I know! Broccolis. Little _tree_ vegetables, very nice. And dessert for cake, I am fond of it." She patted the twins on the shoulders and headed for the door. "I have forgotten the handcuffsh…oh, darn it, I'm spinning…"

I caught her. I really like doing that.

"Here, Jessie, they're in this box," Mel handed a little white parcel to me. "Can you take her home?"

"Yes! Charlie should take her home!" Sam agreed.

"Jessie, are you alright?" I asked. She gazed at me dizzily and nodded.

"Yesh, Charry, I am jush very tired. Methinksh I require party the firsht to engage in transportational conduct aforementioned party the shecond, hereinafter known ash myshelf, to someplace within myshelf's domicile, place the second." She gestured towards the door, then thought some more. "Someplace with pillows. Flat."

"Is she alright?" I asked the Redferns.

"Charlie," Sam sighed, whispering in exasperation, "take the nice neurotic clock girl to bed. Tuck her in and make sure she's still making some sort of sense. Then open the box and _read_ the handcuffs. There's really no such thing as the Twitching Curse."

At that moment, Jessie's knees chose to knock together and she nearly fell down again. I dropped the box and picked her up, only to have a Redfern set the box on top of her stomach.

"That's right, just take her home."

"Party the second wishes to point out she is _not_ intockshicated. I just don't feel myself."

"Yes, Jessie. Party the second will be alright once she gets used to it," Ken remarked. Mel nodded.

"Just go with the nice aforementioned first party."

"…'Kay." Jessie's head leaned against my shoulder as either Mel or Kendra opened the door for us. A shiver ran down my spine. "Bye, Redferns!"

"Later, Jess!"

"Oooh, they left the brownies!"

"Just eat them! We've got more!"

"Thanks, Charlie!"

Behind us, the door closed. I had just reached the bottom of the steps when I heard the unmistakeable sound of triplettish laughter from within. Jessie sighed against my shirt.

"They can be such _witches."_

At least, I _think_ that was what she said.

"Why did you have the handcuffs on, anyway?"

"I was _testing_ them. They should _know_ better than to put mechanical things where I can…okay, maybe it's my fault, too. But they still stock some very, _very_ mischievous things in there!"

"Oh? Like what?" I was enjoying this new, tiredly frank Jessie.

"You didn't know? They have a…a naughty gift shop on the one floor."

"How do you mean, naughty?"

"…Charlie, I'm dating you, I think, so I'm going to be fairly blunt."

"No such thing as the Twitching Tickes?" I smiled.

"Only if you give my big brother a case of Muggle espresso drink. No, the handcuffs were just part of their mischievous inventory. And I, stupidly, didn't read the maker's mark 'fore I tried them on myself. Idiot!"

"What, were they Terrible Twitching Cuffs?" We had reached the back door of Jas.W. Tickes and Sons, which opened when Jessie mumbled a ward password. She then looked over my shoulder to make sure the door was shut, then did a cursory room check -for the mischievous twins, no doubt.

"You might want to put me down."

"Samantha said to put you in bed." I started up the stairs.

"That'll do…you keep trying to _put_ me there. A girl could get strange ideas."

"I'm not being mischievous…just…sort of worried. You didn't look well back there."

"Oh, I was _well_ enough."

I set Jessie on her bed and she slowly sat up. "Let's put it this way. You remember Grandfather's Colorful History of Diagon Alley?"

"Yes."

"Well…I expect these cuffs are therefore an historical artifact." She pulled a knife from her pocket, snapped it open and cut the string holding the parcel shut. "Observe," she remarked, lifting the handcuffs out with the knife's blade. "Lady Morrigan's Mistress Cuffs, patent pending A.D.1855." Jessie set them back down, this time on the bedspread. "See this different link in the middle, that's so they can be installed. You'd put a bolt through there and secure the whole shebang with a nut. Same for the footy cuffs." Jessie's obliviously clever look had returned. "Really, they're in grand condition for such an old set. The engraving's in splendid shape."

"They do seem nice," I agreed.

"Yes, and I assure you, the spells _still work." _With a kind of rueful glance to the metal cuffs, Jessie stood up and headed for the bedroom door. "I should set the table, doesn't take the boys long to bring home food."

"Spells? What are Lady Morrigan's…"

I can be very dense sometimes. Suffice it to say, by the time Jessie reached the door, I had understood. _"Oh.   
_

"Yes, I felt you might feel that way," Jessie examined her right wrist thoughtfully. "Interesting things, they are."

"But…but why would you want to _own_ them?"

A deliciously wry smirk crept onto Jessie's face as she looked back at me.

"…Wouldn't everyone?"

And with that, she headed downstairs.

I sighed and glanced at the cuffs, then sighed again until I realized I was actually panting. Not only had I clearly underestimated the bespectacled belle of the winding and ticking world, I was in for a wild year.


	17. A Ballot

Chapter Seventeen: A Ballot

It was barely two days after Jessie took control of the shop that she began to attend the weekly meetings of the Diagon Alley Chamber of Commerce as a member of the upper floor. There was a fine ceremony when she moved up, and the bustling little witch who was Secretary that year pointed out that since the terms were about to end, it would be very nice if the newest shop-owner made a speech. I think she intended for Jessie to be made Secretary so she could herself be Historian, and I think the Chairman intended to include her to get the young people to his side.

"Yes, Madam Tickes, please do."

It was strange, people calling her 'Madam Tickes.' I supposed it was because she was now so definitely an adult. For some strange reason I liked it. Of course, she was still our Jessie, with her hair in a tail –tied with a blue ribbon for the occasion, and her best trade attire, including a longish coat that, to be perfectly fair, looked a bit too big. She also had the last traces of a black eye and bruises from the incident, which seemed somehow significant. I would've thought she'd have concealed them somehow if they weren't gone by then, which, really, they should have been.

Of course, I couldn't quite picture Jessie as the sort to _own_ a lot of makeup, let alone know how to use the stuff. She had worn a little on our date to see Big Ben, but I knew for a fact my younger sister had helped with it. Ginny and Jessie seemed to get along very well, given that it was also Ginny and her friends who'd helped her get ready for the night's meeting. Jess had gone up to Hogsmeade for half the day and come back looking lovely, if still bruised-up, with Honeydukes chocolate for all of us and a note for me from Ginny. She wanted to know if I'd heard anything about Bill and Fleur –and I had, they were picking a location as well as the date for their wedding.

That was partly why Ginny and Jessie getting along made me so cheerful –Ginny thought Fleur was an insipid bint. Jessie did get along well with most people, though, mainly by being rather calm and not really understanding their differences, even if she did manage to notice there were any. She was perfectly oblivious, for example, to the fact that Fleur is part-Veela, and once we told her she only wanted to know if that meant she couldn't wear metal bands. I wouldn't say ignorance is bliss, but not caring, apparently, can be very nice.

For some reason, though, Jessie did seem to care what the Chamber of Commerce thought. She looked as nervous as Ron in a witches' clothing shop.

"Erm…alright." She stood up and headed to the podium, a shaky little smile on her face as if she might ask the Chamber to please not eat her. She had some little white cards, I thought I saw, but her hand kept them from being obvious. Of course, her hands were shaking, so she could have been holding a live salamander and one couldn't have been sure.

I was sitting with my brothers in the front seats of the lower floor, which isn't really a lower floor, just some rows behind the upper-floor members that don't hold office. The boys' shop was among the highest grossing lately, so we had a better view. I grinned at Jessie, doubting she could see, but hoping she did okay. She seemed to be gazing in my general direction, after all.

Just then, she brightened.

"Tradespeople of Diagon," she began, "I am honored to be counted among such an august body, a group without which the economy of wizarding London might well collapse, which sets the standard of honest commerce for all Britain, and holds the lead among the trading centers of Europe even to this day!" She sort of gestured up, and to my surprise, they applauded. I think she was surprised as well. "We are the providers of everything a witch or wizard could desire within London –well, nearly everything!" She grinned cheerily. "Without us, our world would face a state of economic anarchy in a very large area. The thriving black market would swell, like a malevolent Lethifold, and instantly smother all that is good and right in Britain. For tell me, how can our honest customers survive against the gangsters of the illegal trade? How can we protect them, and protect ourselves?"

I was astonished. She was really quite a good speaker. Of course, it didn't seem like her to pander to the older people so heavily…Jessie liked the Redferns and tolerated Knockturn Alley beautifully.

And then she smiled.

"I lack the years of wisdom many of you bring to this Chamber. I also lack some of your height." That got a laugh. "But I do offer the perspective of youth, of a person raised to the trade, as many of you are, yet acutely aware of the challenges facing all the generations, especially mine. We are standing on the blade of a knife, and if we lean one way, we will be lost. Lean another, and we are saved. But at any rate, we cannot stand still, or we will be sliced in half, as easily as a paid receipt. We live in times demanding action. If we continue to stand against our brother shopkeepers, misguided though we may think them, we will be a house divided, and it will be that much easier for You-Know-Who-"

There was a gasp. Jessie stopped, then sighed with a wry smile.

"You read the news. You hear noise at night. Come on. Look at me, for peace sake, still bruised after a trip to St. Mungo's and mended bones. How long before it's _any_ shop they attack? If the always-neutral Tickes can have her window smashed, couldn't that mean a little worse for the more partisan shops about?" Then she sighed again and looked at the podium, then up to her audience. "I don't ask that we declare ourselves Potterists or fall into perfect line with the Ministry or anything of the kind. We are an organization of economic interests, devoted to the free and unhindered pursuit of trade, with a rich and varied history, most of it measured by my family's clocks, chronicled in Flourish and Blotts, and made truly magical with the help of Olivander's. We are not politicians, we're shopkeepers!"

She looked grave.

"And the Death Eaters and the continued persecution of Knockturn Alley are bad for business. Simple as that. We can come together, all the tradespeople of London, and resist…or we can let them raise taxes to clean up after we're all gone."

Silence. I glanced to my right and realized even Fred and George were raptly attentive.

"But what could I know? I'm the youngest shop-owner here. I'm sure there's a few people brighter than me who'll know how to sort this out. So, -er, here's to a bright new year, a glorious Black Friday, and holiday figures that make previous years look like apprentice work! To business!"

"To business!" the crowd echoed, a smattering of very tense applause sounding as if everyone were waiting for a bomb to explode.

I was patently astonished –and vaguely turned on. Jessie gave me a bright grin as she went back to her seat, and I noticed her hands were still shaking. That _was_ actually somewhat obvious.

A few minutes of Fudgian-speak later, the Chairman opened the floor for nominations to office, beginning with that of Chair. I swear, at the time that this happened I had no idea what occurred was even possible. By the Chamber's rules, members of the upper floor alone could make nominations, though any member could be nominated, and a member of any floor could second nominations. I should also, perhaps, reiterate that Jessie was very well-liked at this time. She pleased many, was courteous to all, and offended almost nobody. And there were many, many people who were all for integrating with the Knockturn shops, even if only to impose some standards and perhaps add better lighting.

And, of course, those who did not agree with her assumed she was still too young to do anything.

I don't remember who nominated her to be Chairperson. I think it might've been Florean Fortescue, or maybe it was Abigail Flourish. What I do remember is that my brothers and about five other people in the lower floor stood up to second it.

Jessie, it must be told, went a shade of red previously only seen when Gryffindor took the Cup, then instantly whitened to the point where she resembled Moaning Myrtle's pretty older sister. I don't think she really even meant to nod when the Chairman, who looked pretty startled and slightly upset to be facing a challenger, asked her if she accepted the nomination. I think she was just shaken enough, she would have nodded to anything.

She certainly looked frightened.

The other nominations were handled well. Finally, Florean Fortescue, who was Treasurer and had just been put up for Secretary, nominated George for his old office, and then amended the nomination to both twins.

"We could make them co-treasurers," he explained. "Their shop's done very well, you know." Mumbles of disbelief followed.

"I second it," a small, slightly Irish-sounding voice assented. It took me a second to realize Jessie had moved, let alone put my brothers on the ballot. "They're good businessmen." She gave one of her shy smiles and the noise faded.

And the voting began. The rules were that everyone lined up by reverse-alphabetical and marked their ballots with a big red plume of a quill. The ballots, instantly printed with a few charms from the Custodian, were small and it was virtually impossible to see what a person marked. The ballots were then placed in a small marketing basket that filled with white flames at a word from the Chairperson.

We voted, I think one can guess who I marked my ballot for, and filed out into the hall to wait. Jessie followed not long after, still looking terrified. Fred and George ran up and hugged her between the two of them.

"Bloody amazing speech, Jessie!"

"Who knew the clocksmith could wind people?"

"And its super they want you for Chairwoman."

"Is't?" she half-gasped. "…I d'know…_could_ do worse…I _think_." She did _not_ look confident.

"Naw, Jess, you'd be great at it!"

"But …why'd you second us?"

"Why not?" Jessie shrugged absently. "You'd be good at it. The Chamber needs talent and hard work right now, not just stuffy propriety."

"Aww, Jess!" They hugged her again and she seemed to relax for the first time all night. Over Fred's shoulder, she smiled at me and I felt that little tension in my chest again. I still don't know what kept me from sweeping her up and kissing her right then and there.

"We're going to go get some of the refreshments-"

"If you'd like anything-?"

"Erm…drink." Jessie made a sort of pointing gesture that implied dry mouth and, I thought, a pretty good case of shock. The boys promised to be back and I told them we'd be down the side corridor. I offered Jessie my arm and she slipped hers into mine as if the action didn't even require conscious thought. I found us a bench down the corridor and managed to get her seated. Luckily, no one else was about just then. I was still pretty impressed.

"Jessie...wow. I didn't know you could...wow." She looked at me, smiled slightly and leaned closer –then abruptly leaned back so her back was flat flush to the wall.

"Charlie, I forbid you to be impressed by that speech."

"Why? It was wonderful."

"It was rank rubbish, at least when I started it! I had to get help from Ginny, Hermione and Luna, as well as what I cribbed from Professors Sprout, Flitwick and Snape. It was practically a stage play."

"...Flitwick and _Snape?"_

"Well, where did you _think_ the gestures came from?" She smiled a little more normally. "I really don't know a damned thing about how to speak in public, so I just kinda copied them best I could…" I helped her off with the blue coat. She had on her best vest underneath, and one of her loosely long-sleeved shirts. My shirt looked similar, but the vest left no doubt as to her gender. Drat Ginny sometimes.

"Er…I don't see how you copied Snape…"

"Well, that was also kind of a 'what not to do'…but I did point up. People making speeches always point up a lot when they talk about happy things, and they make hand slashes when they talk about stuff that's to be got rid of, and if things are bad they hold on to the podium." She sounded so matter-of-fact, and so terrified it was hard not to smile. "At least, that's what Hermione said. Luna reckoned I should've worn a boat-tailed grackle hat, but Ginny said no…I _should've_."

"…A _what?"_

"Boat-tailed grackle. It's a sort of bird…I don't think they'd be attempting to elect me if I'd just worn the damn grackle hat. I _knew_ I should've listened to Luna, she is a Ravenclaw, after all...but was she sure it was the grackle hat? What about a duck?"

"Jessie, you don't look well."

"Of course I don't! I can't believe this _happened!_ …Why do these things always happen to me?"

"What?"

"It's always like this! Every time something _scary_ happens, I'm the one it happens to!" That didn't make a speck of sense, but I listened politely. "Like in seventh year! Professor Grubbly-Plank gave a prize for the best owl perch and I had to stand up in front of everyone! And in third year, Professor Snape once actually said that I was the least mentally-deficient waste of academic space in the class. I wanted to die!"

"Er…those are both good things, though."

"Oh, for the people that like them, yeah, but not if they're scary!"

I suddenly understood.

"Jess…you're _shy!"_

"Ya _think?"_

"But…you're completely fine with a lot of people in the shop. And you meet people easily, I'd bet a good eighty percent of the people here think you're a great person…"

"Yeah…but that's the shop, you know? I'm safe there…Bludger-bat incident notwithstanding. And one at a time, people aren't that scary…unless they're professors who aren't Professor Sprout. Or Aurors who aren't Tonks. Or Ministers who aren't Fudge, or goblins who aren't that really nice one, Clipring, or vampires who don't collect alarm clocks like that Vladislavski fellow, or hags who aren't-" She stopped and looked at me suddenly, an expression of dawning realization. "Wait a minute."

Was it really this easy? I just had to guide her logic a bit and she wouldn't be frightened any more. It was difficult not to laugh.

"I think you get nervous speaking in front of crowds, is all."

"Well…doesn't everyone?"

"I don't think Dumbledore does."

"No. Or Professor Snape. Or…what the bloody _is_ there to be nervous about? I know most of them, anyway, and the ones I don't know will eventually need watches, or else I'll meet them at meetings –_that's_ why they're called that! I'd wondered! –And if one or two of 'em don't like me or my thoughts on things, I can just ask their opinion and then they'll be so pleased to be listened to it won't matter."

"That might be taking it a bit far, but I think you've got it."

"Dang. A lot of perfectly good energy gone being scared of things that really aren't frightening."

"Well, some things you should be frightened of, the really dangerous ones."

"Oh? Like what?"

"Like hippogryffs, or dragons."

"I've petted hippogryffs, they're polite enough if you make the effort first and bring dead ferrets or a bit of steak. And you're really one to talk about dragons being dangerous, Mr. Oh-Aren't-These-Hatchlings-Adorable."

"Well, like uncontrolled werewolves, then."

"In the age of Wolfsbane, the only ones who'd deliberately go uncontrolled are complete nutters anyway, and that's why we have Aurors. You know, I think the reason they're called that is because Complete Nutter Disposal Force cost more in price-per-letter to put on office doors."

She'd turned the tables on me. I don't believe her sometimes; cute, clever, astonishingly ditzy at moments…and still mischievous enough to entirely justify her friendship with my twin brothers.

"Like…like You-Know-Who."

"Again, complete nutter. If the Aurors and Potter don't sort him out, sooner or later he's bound to either develop some reason and calm down …or kidney stones. And then he'll have to calm down in order to get in at St. Mungo's. Kidney stones are supposed to hurt something fierce. Or one of his own followers will turn on him to take over the pack and the ensuing kerfuffle will thin them down to ineffectuality. Vicious creatures are good at keeping their own numbers down, it's in the design of things. –Pumpkin juice, yay!" She accepted the drink from George. "Thanks, I was going spare just a bit ago."

"You just asserted that digestive upset could bring down the Dark Lord," Fred observed.

"Well, it could!"

"Have you been talking with Luna Lovegood again?" George asked.

"Well, yes, but not in the Tinfoil Hat Club way." Jessie slid down the bench to make space for the twins to sit, inadvertently bringing herself decidedly closer to me. A little dance of fingertips on my knee, and I realized it was anything but inadvertent. "I think it has to do with something Hermione was explaining to Ginny ad nauseum –she does that, you know. But the idea was this Muggle philosophy from the seventeen-hundreds called Deism."

"Wait…I thought you girls were having a chat on makeup and dress just then."

"True, yeah, but it got to that. Ginny was making fun of my coats again and Hermione compared them to John Locke's, who was some Muggle philosopher fellow, and Ginny asked who that was, and Hermione explained, 'cause she'd just read a book on him over the break –and you know how _those_ conversations run."

"So what'd our little textbook turn out for you?" Fred grinned.

"There was this idea of religion around the Enlightenment that this Locke guy had a good hand in thinking up, it was called Deism, and the idea was that yes, there's a Creator, and yes, he made the world, but he made it in such a way that it can run on its own, the mechanisms are all there, like evolution and instinct and such. The metaphor they used a lot was 'the divine watchmaker.' Apparently the world was kind of like a watch, and the greater power was kind of like…well, me. …Except kind of older and taller and…more like Granddad."

There was a brief silence.

"If Jessie's a deity, I get five Galleons."

"You're on."

"Yes, but it also explained why there were things like evil and corruption…they're kind of like dust in the mainspring; a little won't kill you, but a lot can gut the movement. And population is like oil…too little is bad, but so is too much, so sickness and old age are like cutting solvent, and the human sex drive is like an eyedropper of 10-W, and the hands of the watch are like seasons and weather…and the numbers are like countries…"

"You are …really enjoying this metaphor," George remarked. It was plain the twins were either nonplussed or completely confused –I'd bet the latter.

"Wait. It gets better!"

"You-Know-Who is already a dust speck with intestinal issues. What else can you do to it?" Fred asked.

"See, anything wrong with the system, like evil or corruption? You can get rid of that, just by overhauling the system a bit. Seal the watch, dust can't get in. Add enough oil, the right kind of dust becomes grain lubricant, in the right space between spring and gear. Too much oil can be cleaned out with a shot of solvent. I've known how to do it for years."

The twins shrugged, completely missing the significance. This little watchmaker had found the confidence to overhaul the system of Diagon Alley, as easily as she might one of her timepieces.

She smiled, glancing a little at me. She knew I knew.

"And it means that you, and I, and everyone we know…" Jessie looked pleased with herself. "-are _gears!" _She grinned at their blank faces for a moment, then sighed. "Well, _I_ thought it was interesting. Gears are cool."

"Kind of gives new validity to the expressions 'grates on you' and 'mesh well,' eh?" I observed, raising my eyebrow a little bit as I smiled, proud of her. The boys might not get it, but I did. Jessie let out a little squeak of glee and caught my hands in hers. For a second I thought she might kiss me, and I was right.

I like being right. I also like being kissed.

And then a look of purest terror, paler than when she had given her speech, slipped onto her face as she turned and looked at the twins.

"Er…um…"

The twins looked –well, perfectly gobsmacked.

"He told us he fancied her…why is this frightening?"

"Didn't mention she fancied him back. Right unfair that is."

"Well, clearly she does."

"Err…" Jessie went quite red. "Crap. I mean, uh… I am deeply sorry for the inconvenience caused by the non-disclosure of romantic feelings between party the first and indicated party the second, who is the duplicite third's elder brother. Non-disclosure was mandated by exigency, suspicions of forthcoming suspicion, and, uh…we didn't know how you'd take it."

There was another pause.

"Guys?" I asked, holding Jessie's hands a little tighter.

"They're so _cute!"_ George suddenly observed. "Entirely unfair of them to look cute together, idn't it?"

"Impossibly cheeky of them. And they might have told us they'd kissed."

"I think they kind of demonstrated it, instead."

"Yeah. Think she's done that before?"

"Only the once!" Jessie protested, before thinking, "…_twice_…okay, I'm getting into a habit, here, but why? S'that a problem?"

"No. It is cute, though."

"But how's _he_ feel about being snogged by five feet some inches of girl clocksmith?"

I glared playfully at Fred and demonstrated that no, I did not mind at all. Somehow Jessie's and my hands came loose and migrated to each other's arms…and closer…and the twins turned around, grumbling.

And it was really rather a good job it was such an isolated part of Chamber Hall, actually. Between the twins' sounds of mock disgust and observations that there went another one, were they the last single Weasleys left, etc., and the fact that Jess and I were somewhat busy, it was only by the merest chance and George's being attentive that we heard Madam Flourish coming down the hall. She is a matronly lady and would be shocked, I thought, by just the scene that met her eyes as she rounded the corner –twins looking disgusted and a little pleased, Jessie looking winded and a little askew, but smiling, and me grinning nervously at the sound of steps.

Oh, and Jessie was still in my arms just then.

Madam Abigail Flourish, eminent partner in Flourish & Blotts, stared at us for a moment, then clapped her hands excitedly.

"How adorable! If I could only paint, that would illustrate a page of Jane Austen beautifully…and the red hair, it sets off the green of the coats…ooh!" Fred and George smiled nervously. "The votes have been tallied, incidentally, quite an upset."

"Oh?" I asked, a feeling of rising delight in my chest.

"Yes. And if the Messrs. Treasurer would kindly escort me back inside, I'm sure I can delay them long enough for Madam Chairperson to fix her hair. They're calling for you, dearie."

With a gallantry that would have Mum very proud, the twins offered Madam Flourish their arms and walked off, talking cheerily. I looked back at my girlfriend, my Jessie, and was sorely tempted not to let her accept the position on time at all. She was still looking a little out of breath, and one tendril of brown hair had gotten free of the blue ribbon.

"Charlie, am I hallucinating?"

"No…Madam Chairperson," I snorted.

She gave me a pointed glare above a wry smile.

"See if you dare call me that in bed," she growled.

I shut up.

"Well, they're bloody well stuck with me, now. Might as well look like myself." And with that, Jessie yanked her tie undone, snapped her first two shirt buttons open, pulled the collar out, and smirked. She had gone from nervous to rakish in ten seconds. "Walk in with me?"

"I…er…"

"There's a crowd. Gossips won't notice it. 'Sides…I _was_ shown how to make entrances."

"Ginny?" I gasped, still reeling from her apparent casual remark.

"No…" And she smirked more mischievously, throwing her coat over her shoulders. Yes, it was possible. "Professor Snape."

I'm sure you've read about the term of Chairperson Jamesina W. Tickes the Fourth and how it impacted Diagon Alley during the Potter War; how she quickly assumed command. I'm sure you also read about her first acts as Chair, initiating contact with Knockturn Alley and establishing their Chamber, to this day the sister office of the Diagon Chamber Hall. I'm sure you read about how she faced down opposition by means of pure calmness in character, and how she would eventually leave the office a much more prestigious position.

I bet you didn't know she did it with such style.

* * *

A/N: Whoever reviews this chapter first will have the three-hundredth. That person may ask for plot details ahead of time, or some such sort of odd question, and I'll actually answer them. -J. McN. 


	18. A Speech

Sorry for the delay. I was busy.

Chapter Eighteen: A Speech

I don't know what possessed Florean Fortescue to nominate me. I don't know what possessed Madam Flourish to second it. I don't know what in the seven hells Fred and George spiked everyone's refreshments with to make them vote like that.

I do know why I accepted the nomination, though. That much is clear in my head, though I must confess to some serious self-doubt at the time and just afterward.

Firstly, I didn't think I had a hope in hell of winning. Let's get that squared away. In all seriousness, what rational person would put a twenty-year-old –well, twenty as of midnight that evening, in charge of the self-governing body of the economic center of one of the leading cities of the world? It's preposterous. They'll be making Ginny Queen of England next.

Actually, she'd be kind of good at that. Luna'd be funnier to watch, though.

However, as I thought at the time, there would be some interesting results if I were elected. As a highly controversial Chairperson, I would be prevented from doing too much damage –the head of any body can only cause as much trouble as there are voters dumb enough to agree with him blindly; but I would be able to make a _few_ changes.

Best of all, I could use my youth as leverage. Allying the Alleys? _She's young, let's humor the kid, it'll blow up in her face and we can get someone better. _Removing the moral restrictions on businesses' qualifications to join the Chamber? _Well, she's young, maybe more young people will shop here if we give them this little boon. The old blue-laws don't protect too much anymore anyway._ Starting an advertising/PR blitz that openly counters the Dark paranoia and markets Diagon as the shining light of haven in the midst of the worst war since Grindelwald? _I wonder where the little bint got THAT._

My first act as Chairperson, after making a speech that left my stomach feeling like I'd swallowed a flobberworm, of course, was sending Min out with notes to the people who would eventually be formally recognized as my Cabinet. I needed help to do this job, so I asked for it; can't expect a gear to turn the world alone. I still have the list:

Sam Redfern – economic insight

Hermione Granger – ideas, governance, speechwriting

Mel Redfern – market research

Luna Lovegood – keeping me cheered up, conspiracy detection

N. Tonks – security, Ministry watch

Padma Patil – appearances, graphic design

Ken Redfern – intelligence

Ginny Weasley – style

With the exception of Tonks and the Redferns, these women had been partly responsible for getting me elected. Ginny Transfigured my coat to still look appropriately Old Diagon, yet somewhat more feminine, and she did something to the size. When I needed to be self-effacing, it would grow slightly and look a bit too big, making me look smaller. When I needed to command respect it would fit perfectly and have a nice flow in all the right places. Apparently she uses the same charm on her Quidditch things for the purpose of sandbagging the other team. My shirt, trousers and vest…well, she is an artist as much as a witch; my clothes did look fabulous.

Padma did some astonishing things with makeup and charms to stop my bruises fading (as they had been, St. Mungo's likes patients to look as healthy as possible as soon as possible,) and even highlight the effect a little bit. She also trimmed my hair a little differently and Did Something to make it stay nice. The goal was to have a visible reminder of the Dark threat –it's very hard for people to say something doesn't exist when there's a person with owwy-looking injuries from said thing. Did we exaggerate the aftermath? Maybe. The bruises could certainly have been closer to gone by the meeting and most people would have covered them up, but Hermione and I decided it was bolder to show the marks.

Hermione's the one who helped me compose the first speech I gave, incidentally. The strategy of drawing people in, reminding them that I represent something they're attached to, pointing out the very real threat, and then almost seeming to give up when offering the 'things as usual or better' toast the status-quo crowd expects…I think there are several famous Muggles she helped me rip off with that. She went over my phrases and added some better rhetoric, as well as toning down my tendency to make glaring digressions. Yes, it is possible to make me stop. Hermione Granger has done it.

She even helped me with gestures and speaking style. I was made to watch a couple Muggle speakers she'd taken wizarding pictures of, including some that I swear were of actors on the televising box. (I like T.B. Almost wish we had it here.) I also adapted a bit from how certain professors speak and move, especially McGonagall and Snape, and in rehearsal we got it to the point where I seemed pretty credible. We also had a long discussion of statecraft, which weirdly led us into a discussion of Muggle theatre, which I became quite interested in, which led us finally back to statecraft, once I'd gotten an amazingly good idea. The notion of the advertising/PR campaign I mentioned earlier? Muggles invented that. And it works pretty well, if I do say so myself.

Luna cheered me up after all of that preparation with an astonishingly detailed account of the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and their habits. I'm fairly sure those creatures aren't precisely real, but I do sometimes _want_ to believe in them. Luna is happier than most everyone I know and she believes in preposterous things. Maybe that keeps one sane.

That, or simply being so perfectly splendid that a girl can't stop snogging you…like Charlie. Oh, my…what I couldn't have stood without him there…

Establishing the Knockturn Alley Chamber was actually a lot easier than I'd feared. I had, of course, never dreamed of having Fred and George on my side with the Treasury, and that was a tremendous help. The other thing was that I had gotten a nice bit of advice from Hermione:

"If a Prefect acts like they don't want to dock points and that they really want to be liked, they'll be seen as too weak and fail. If they act like a complete dictator, they'll have rebellion inside of two minutes. The key is to walk in with the full knowledge of what you can do, the assurance that you don't _need_ to be liked by these people, and your goal in mind above all concerns. You have authority –use it confidently for what you need, and that's all you have to do."

"Really?"

"Well, sort of. Sometimes you still get a few blighters who have to challenge you, and then you have to let them humiliate themselves. The secret there is never to lose calm."

See? Brilliant. So I did just that, which brings me to that gut-like-a-flobberworm speech I mentioned. That's really what started everything.

Walking in for the first time, I strode very purposefully to the dais, yanking my coat off as I reached the first step and tossing it to George. Up there in my vest and the loose sleeves most Old Diagon shopkeepers wore for formal occasions with my hair coming out of the queue just a bit in front, I must've looked like the pirate queen. That notion made me smile a bit, and I gave the crowd a bright, confident grin. '_Yes. I _am _the Pirate Queen,'_ I thought.

_What?_ _You_ try being in a situation that stressful sometime and see what crazy thoughts come to mind. I was the Pirate Queen of Diagon for a second there. It helped.

"Ladies and gentlemen of Diagon, I give you Jamesina Worthing Tickes the Fourth –your Chairperson!" Florean Fortescue announced as I reached the podium. Dreadfully nice of him. What was even nicer was the applause I got from …_most_ of the room.

"Dreadfully bold of the little tart," the former Chairman's wife whispered, a little too loudly.

It is here in the story that I must confess to something. I stole the first part of my performance for the subsequent few minutes from Professor Severus Snape of Hogwarts. The attitude, the look, the sheer snarkiness…yeah. I learned it in Potions class.

"What…was…that?" I inquired, not really a question, raising an eyebrow slowly at the woman. "A little…_tart?"_

She stood there, staring at me, as the entire room stared at the both of us. I knew it was a matter of who tolerated being stared at best. I spoke slowly and deliberately:

"Funny, I don't seem to recall Diagon Alley electing a _tart_ to lead them through a war. Nor do I recall an upstart, a child, a presumptuous girl or a chit being elevated to the supreme office of this Chamber. As I heard it, _I _was elected."

She was rather uncomfortable. I was rather winning it.

"Madam, my name is Jamesina Tickes. I'm not the first to carry it, and I _think_ you can recall what previous versions have been like. If you recall correctly, _dreadfully bold_ is perhaps the mildest that can be said of a woman like me. If you actually took the time to know me, I think you'd find that, in fact, I am fiercely, even _passionately_ bold. The word _brazen_ even comes to mind."

Yes, I was going to win, as long as I stayed calm and confident.

"Perhaps you mistook me for a nervous kid. Easy mistake. I am, after all," I checked my watch, "twenty years old tonight. Or perhaps you assumed that, if elected, I would eagerly accept all help, guidance and even decisions from my …elders."

I scanned the room, looking very deliberately over the top of my spectacles, an eyebrow still raised.

"If that is the case, you are tragically mistaken."

My heart was racing so fast it was beating my watches.

"I have been elected by a wide margin, ladies and gentlemen, and I intend to use the full powers of my position from the first instant.. I do, as your leader, encourage you at all times to present your own opinions with respect, for I do value experience and wisdom, however I may appear a –what was it? 'Bold little tart?'"

I remember thinking 'please, just don't let me stutter now…'

"Consider this a first, last and only warning: do _not_ mistake my youth. I _will_ act, according to my own decisions for the welfare of my people, with boldness and singularity of purpose, because the times now require it."

I raised my voice at last.

"Hear me now, Diagon Alley! _The age of Fudge is over!_ The time of hiding our heads in the sand, of denying the _brutally_ obvious, of bowing to party line simply for the sake of our precious status quo is dead and buried as of this instant. We're at war. I'm in charge. We're fighting. It's that simple. If the fight requires we offend a few old biddies, or alienate a few bigots, or defend our shops and our homes with _lethal_ force, then _SO BE IT!"_

They looked a little gobsmacked there…even the people I thought liked me. But there was no backing down.

"You chose me to lead you. Whatever you are feeling at this moment, I will never betray that trust. As of this moment, I no longer belong to myself. I am the Alley, as surely as it called me to life, raised me to adulthood and taught me my life's career. I shall protect Diagon even as it has sheltered me. Death Eaters, You-Know-Who…let them come! We _shall_ be ready. Let the curses fly, let the steel masks march in! We are strong enough! We shall make them pay more dearly for a broken window than they can afford to conquer all of Britain!

"Why are you frightened? I can see the courage in your hearts! For Merlin's sake, look at our history! Our very blood has written the fate of a nation! Without us, what is Britain? What is the wizarding world entire? Think of trade, of civilization, of magic itself! What would that be, if not for us? _Fiction_.

"You think you are frightened now. Wait until you're working on account books and you look up to see a polished mask. Wait until the first blow, and the second, and until you can't count them anymore. Wait until your own teeth are loose and bleeding in your mouth. Wait until your hand closes around the bat.

"Follow me, and we will have the bat ready before they arrive. –Now, is that too bold? A little too much for a war leader? Come now. Just because it's easy to assume mediocrity doesn't mean I will. I'm so used to everyone needing perfection from me that nothing less remains possible."

I paused for a moment.

"What time is it?"

They looked down. They looked up.

They got it.

I grinned.

So yeah, after that it was pretty easy to get the first resolutions started.

They didn't even notice that when I went home at the end of the meeting I puked from nerves until Charlie had to carry me to bed. And nobody but the twins noticed that he stayed there with me that night, holding me close until morning. I was glad they knew…but more so that they approved, however grudgingly.

You see, when I look at people over my spectacles, I can't see their faces clearly. It's easy to be brave for a crowd of blurs. The only person I could really see, throughout the fiercest speech I would ever have to make, was Charlie.

I don't think I could have done any of it without him.


	19. A Bottle

Chapter Nineteen: A Bottle

I suppose I'd be a good person to write about this particular part of the story, considering Jess and Charlie weren't around for a bit of it, and frankly, because I tell it well.

The Friday night a week after Jessie became Chairperson was also the night that Knockturn Alley's finest alternative dance club –that's PC talk for 'gay bar,' incidentally, was having their annual tribute to Muggle artists. It's customary to go in costume, and…well, I like doing that. There's also the fact that I have certain talents when it comes to dress-up, being a Metamorphmagus an' all. The Sticky Lick's really a smashing place, but I hardly ever got to go without sneaking out.

Yeah. Sneaking out. Because, you know, I wasn't yet. Not to everyone.

Luckily, I'm a flippin' Meta, so I pretty much got away with it.

Anyway, it was Muggle Madness Night, and being a positively heaving fan of both Miss Ana Matronic, long may she reign, _and_ Miss Geri Halliwell, I was experiencing a moral conundrum on a level with picking whom to vote for for Minister of Magic.

Yeah, who flippin' _cares_ if they're straight? They're also _hot_.

But I had this problem, see, and it has been my experience that the best person to solve a problem is someone who's completely oblivious. I had a friend in Ravenclaw, Luna Lovegood, who was great with helping me decide on stuff, but she wasn't available, so I decided on the next-best-thing.

"Jessie, which of these women is more attractive?"

Poor girl really does look a bit like a bug with her special glasses for clockwork on.

"Uh…I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask…but according to the Patil sisters, fabulous eyeshadow is a must, and hers has the most colors in it. So that one." She pointed to the Scissor Sisters picture. "Though I kind of like the other one's Union Jack outfit. Why d'you ask?"

"Costume for…costume night."

"Oh. Then definitely go as that one. Is that a tattoo of…mechanical…shoulder…_why?"_

Crap. I broke the clocksmith.

"Yeah, it's a…Muggle thing."

"Well, yeah, as they _are_ Muggle photographs. So, what sort of costume night?"

Sometimes she really isn't as oblivious as I'd like her to be.

"It's…er…just…a thing. I have the night off and all."

"Cool. I have Chamber stuff to do tonight…extending the hand of friendship and whatlike…completely rubbish that it has to be so theatrical…"

"So what, you're going to walk into Knockturn and say 'Let's be friends, wot?'"

"Eh…I was thinking a little different. See, Granddad told me about this one place, it's a social hub of the area, and if one is accepted there, the entire span of this specialized community is pretty likely to join up with one's own party allegiance, provided they can keep the autonomy of…"

Yeah, I kinda didn't listen much past that. Mistake, I know.

"…so I was thinking I'd kind of do the political-statement thing there."

"Sounds great! What are you going to wear?"

"Oh…I was thinking I'd Transfigure something of mine to suit the tastes there."

"Always economical. Though we have got quite a bit of lovely clubwear, you can help yourself long's you bring it back without a dead clockmaker in it. You're not going into the Knocky alone, are you?"

"No, but you know full well I could."

"Jess, you're Chairperson, not the Amazing Hexproof Woman."

"That would be funny…be nice for the dueling club. You remember, with the blond git?"

"Could anyone forget?"

"He's still in St. Mungo's, last I heard. D'you suppose the Defense Against the Dark Arts job's really cursed?"

"Snape's got it now, I hear."

"That'd be sad, if the curse got him."

"You liked Snape's class?"

"Well, kinda, yeah. I actually use some of the stuff I learnt in there…that, and everyone was so scared of him it was nice and quiet."

"Jess, you could be kidnapped by You-Know-Who, kept in a dungeon with rats the size of Crups, fed nothing but bread and water and occasionally beaten; but if you had a sketchbook and your tools, you'd insist you'd enjoyed the quiet."

"…If I had my tools, I could escape."

"Yes!" I grinned snarkily. "As you so adeptly demonstrated with Madam Morrigan's Mistress Cuffs! What was _that?"_ She blushed slightly.

"…The lock's none too difficult."

"Yeah, but tell me why the Fourth Herself would ever need to know how to open handcuffs of any kind? Some sort of watch we don't know about?"

That was a joke of ours. Even before they elected Jessie as Chairperson, a lot of hired people around the Alleys followed her exploits in business, with discussion to the effect that 'And Jamesina Tickes the Fourth, _herself_, she sells to Muggleborns' families,' and the like. It was Sam first greeted Jess as 'The Fourth, Herself,' to be funny, and Jessie's pained look was so amusing we kept on with it. But of course, she was far from helpless…

"I d'know. Maybe she's been spending too much time with the Transforming Temptresses." A Knocky-down newsletter had called us that, and by Knocky-down I mean disreputable even by Knockturn standards, and by newsletter I mean dirty-old-man's suppositions of who'd be the best lay in the area. Sam an' I had laughed over it 'til we ached, and once Ken figured out what the hell it meant, she had a good laugh, too.

Kendra's a bright girl and all, but she can be remarkably slow on the uptake when it comes to smutty things. Must be a Hufflepuff trait. Never could get how each of us wound up in a different House…I reckon the Hat wanted to spread us out so no one Head of House got the stick. That, and we might've all been Gryffindors, and between us and the Weasleys, well…I maintain ol' McGonagall has that hat paid off with Scotch-Gard or some such thing.

My sisters and I, according to the Department of Backstory, are probably the strangest blend of English wizarding and American Muggle society possible. Our mother's American, a Muggle, and quite incidentally after that one of the most popular movie stars of the past two decades. She has piles of fans. Our father, Bob Redfern, runs a book shop in Hogsmeade. Just about the only person who might think him important 'sides us and Mom would be Madam Pince up Hogwarts -she runs the library there, and maybe the Chocolate Frog card trading club.

We don't visit our parents as often as we should since we started the shop –partly because Mom's home more often during the day since she turned fifty and they…well, they love each other to distraction. Sometimes it can be odd to be around…as in, you have, _have_ to call first, or risk retinal-cochlear damage on horrifying levels. As to how on earth a bookseller and a movie star get on; there's a Muggle movie called 'Notting Hill' that Mom really wanted to direct, as she'd understood it so well, but not too many people at her work knew about us and Dad. (Even if they had, they likely would've nattered on about typecasting and not let her have it either.) It was still very good and she backed the production for…oh, some percentage, and became rather friendly with a few of the actresses in it.

I think that was what she needed to stay sane in such a business for so long, a husband and kids who were normal and entirely oblivious to all that, just like Dad needed someone spectacular to come home to after –well, bookstores are not always the gay mad whirl, you know. Biggest thrill of _his_ career was adding the coffee part, that and a few interesting book signings. People also tend to mistreat shopkeepers, especially if they manage but don't own their shops, and I'd bet you anything the knowledge that once he got home, the fireplace would light up and a glamorous movie star would step out of it with takeout bags in each hand and snog him senseless right in front of their three daughters would be enough to burst the skulls of most customers.

Which, of course, Mom did. Constantly. It got to the point that we're still fairly unfazed by snogging of any stripe going on in our presence. Not that we don't make a noise if there's too much tongue, but it's hard to bother us short of clothes coming off.

And then we'd just make popcorn, if it weren't _our parents_. Euugh!

They have a unique arrangement, of course. Mom knows about our world and probably has enough of a sense for magic that the amount of magical stuff that works for her makes sense. Dad met her on the way to the 1975 Quidditch World Cup, of course, after the horse she was riding for a remarkable independent film about Lady Godiva ran away (with her still stuck in the side-saddle,) somewhere in the Lancaster countryside. Dad was potting along on one of the motorcycles that were fashionable in that era, with the flying turned off (he's quite afraid of heights,) when suddenly an apparently naked woman galloped by on a horse that could charitably have been called insane, screaming for help.

No, Mom was not making the most piteous of cries, guaranteed to wrench the heartstrings of any man of chivalry. _Sod.__ That._ She was cursing like a Dixieland riverboat captain in a language that had at one point included English…you see, Mom is from New Orleans, and sometimes she does let fly with language that could well cause burn marks on people's ears.

Dad took one look at that, reasoned that God liked him after all, and in what Mom always described as 'a chase scene like _The Princess Bride _meets _The Great Escape_ but as storyboarded by Frank Miller and directed by Baz Luhrmann,' managed to rescue her in astonishingly gallant fashion, though he was dreadfully frightened once he realized they were in the air. Mom, after getting over _her_ confusion, which for some reason had more to do with how on earth a motorcycle got onto the 'Lady Godiva' set than the fact that the damn thing was flying like _Mary Poppins _meets _Streets of Fire,_ finally managed to land the bike somewhere rather closer to Dad's old flat. They spent the night there and were married five days later.

It is at this point in the story that Mom usually sighs, grins at Dad, and makes some remark to the effect of 'It was the Seventies. We were young and free.' And then they get at the snogging again. It's dreadful.

But does that perhaps explain a lot?

"And actually, there are several types of watch that lock. Uncle Gard designed this one for diving, so it has a key to lock it on as securely as possible. And then some of the training watches from the new line, they lock to prevent not only loss, but the little ones' eating them. Apparently Robby and Davy _will_ eat watches…"

"How are they doing, by the way?"

"Oh, pretty well, I think…I sent an owl to let 'em know about the whole Chairperson thing."

"…When?"

"Oh…" Jessie suddenly looked sheepish. "I remembered just a bit before you came in here, why?"

"…You were elected nearly three days ago."

"Well, yeah, so I was kind of busy…"

Honestly, that girl…

"Jessie, don't you think your family'd be proud of you? Jeez! I tell my folks when I win so much as a Gobstones tournament –and you're the chief elected official of Diagon! If I were your stepmother, I'd throw a _party_ for that kind of achievement…what is _that_ look about?"

"I'm sorry…the mental picture of my stepmother _at_ one of your parties, let alone throwing one…"

"Not the party type?"

"Not really. She did try to plan one when I turned seventeen, but that was kind of it…"

"I remember that birthday…wasn't too long after the Weasleys left, and you went with us to see Mum's premiere."

"Yeah. That was fun!"

"And it was only that night that Sam remembered you were seventeen, so Mum decided it'd be fun…"

"Midnight margaritas!" we cried in unison.

"We've _got_ to do that again sometime."

"Dancing around in our pajamas, ten minutes past underage and half-drunk on a potion Snape couldn't manage? –You busy this Friday night?"

Jessie really had been growing some sense of adventure lately. I liked it! Not that she was a stick-in-the-mud before …just that she tended to get distracted in the middle of perfectly good mischief. Her heart had never seemed so into fun before, even with the attack and freaking out at Fudge and buying the Mistress cuffs…

It was at that moment that I realized it.

"Who is it, Jess?"

She looked a little startled, then reddened a little bit. _Oh, crap._

"…You won't tell anyone but your sisters? And keep them quiet, too?"

"Gryffindor house honor."

"Charlie Weasley," she sighed, her cheek falling onto her palm as she delicately twirled a little screwdriver through the fingers of her other hand. "We went on a date about a week or two ago, you remember, the night with the Death Eaters outside your shop? And I…well…he…uh…_mmmmm__…"_ Her eyes didn't so much glaze over as caramelize.

"You fucked him on the spot? That's hardly Ravenclaw."

_"I did not!"_ Jessie straightened up and looked at the screwdriver as if the mysteries of the universe might be engraved on it. "…I _wanted_ to."

"But?"

"But I'd never so much as _kissed_ a guy, and it's not good to go skipping steps like that. You have to pull the case and slip the drivegear before you change a mainspring, you know!"

"That…made no sense whatsoever, but I think I understand what you're getting at." I took a sip from my hip-flask to cover my own red cheeks. "So, _did_ you kiss the guy?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, _dish!"_

That's one of the downsides of not being out of the closet yet. You still have to be a good girlfriend, even when you'd sort of rather your girlfriend were your _girlfriend_, if you take my meaning. Not that you don't once you're out, but it's that much harder when she's completely oblivious to the fact that you'd even consider another chick to be well on the side of cute. (She is, by the way.) I would've bet at that moment, though, with Jessie, I could've come out in fifth year and she'd _still_ be oblivious to the notion of somebody liking her, female or otherwise. She's got an amazing eye for detail, but sometimes it's a weird sort of nearsighted.

"…And I just completely snogged him, right there, before I even realized I was going to!"

For an instant, I hated Charlie. _Let it go, Mel._

"Hey, sometimes it just works out that way. You cop a snog where you can as the mood takes you. It's what it means to be young."

"Well, have you ever just up and snogged someone? Or how about _been_ snogged that way?"

_"OhmysweetspikyGodyes!"_ I gasped. "It was seventh year, right after the Quidditch game when the younger Weasley boy blocked all those goals and we took the Cup. I was down by the locker rooms already, and after the team came in and showered, I went back to help Alicia untape her wrist and the team'd left and she was waiting and _ohmylordsandladies_, she pounced me! Must've been a full ten minutes!"

"Wow. She _was_ hot."

"_Tell_ me about it! And right out of the _shower,_ in naught but a red-and-gold-"

_Holy shit._

"Go on." I couldn't. My jaw was still stuck in cavity-filling mode. "Oh… was I not supposed to hear that?"

"You know."

"Know what?"

"About…me."

"And Alicia Spinnet? I knew she was interested in you, but I never knew that you two dated."

"No, Jess, you know I'm a…"

She blinked. Sweet spiky fucksticks, she blinked at me.

"Pfeh. I've known _that_ for years."

_"…How?!"_

"Er…you had more pinups of girls than boys, you only give girls the glance-over, you only flirt with girls, and as far as I recall, you've only ever dated or gone on dates with girls. Except that time with the McLaggen bloke, but I though that was just to let someone else off the hook." Jessie took off her glasses and started rubbing them. "It sort of adds up that you fancy girls. Why, was that a secret?"

_"Kind of!_ I never even told my triplet sisters, Jess, it's a little not-fair of you to just …_figure it out_ like that!"

"Mel, Sam's the one told me. She and Kendra figured it out when you were about fourteen, but it was when Becky Feathersham started making horrible cracks and such that they asked me what I thought."

"And…?"

"I told 'em it made logical sense and asked them did they think you'd pair well with Cho? She was a bit of a trauma case even before she lost poor Cedric, but well into bi territory and kind of cute. I kind of assumed the constant crying was at least partly because she worried about her folks' reaction to not being –what's the word you use? Stric'ly-dickly?" She stretched a bit and stood up from her workbench chair. "Tried to flirt with me a bit once, but I, sadly, _am_ stric'ly-dickly, as far as I can tell. D'you want a butterbeer? I've got a six-pack cold."

"…Yeah."

In her own, oblivious way, she _is_ a good girlfriend.

"Me, I always thought you'd fancy someone a bit on the exotic side. After all, you're _you_. A Redfern. You live with Metamorphmagic sex kitten sisters, you're six kinds of hot yourself, and you've got a mum who –well, let's face it, your mum is badass with a side of chips. It'd take a lot to impress you, and a lot more to be good enough for one of my best mates."

"I like the ordinary sort as well."

"Maybe, but define ordinary." Jessie gripped a bottle in each hand and popped the lids from each with her thumbs. (She actually doesn't drink much; it's just that her hands are incredibly muscular…not a good thing to think about.) "If Becky Feathersham is ordinary, you deserve amazing. Better than amazing, you deserve…you know, it's a damn shame Ginny Weasley's straight. I'm getting to like that brand."

I finally laughed. Everything was going to be alright…you know, once I adjusted to the life-altering shift in worldview, told my sisters what they already knew and got up the courage to be myself in public. Jessie handed me a butterbeer and I really did start to feel better.

"How _are_ things going with Charlie? We kind of got off the subject there."

"Pretty well…I mean, since the election night, Fred and George know I'm seeing him, and given that he's still alive, I'd guess they're okay with it."

"Have you told any of your family?"

"Why _would_ I?" Jessie took a long swig from her bottle –too long, really. "I never tell them anything like that."

"You'd have to tell them if you were, say, going to marry him."

"Pfeh! F'rchrissakes, Mel, I'm never going to get married." She sat down on the workbench chair again, stretching a little. "I'm not a future Mrs., let alone a future Mrs. Weasley, nice though I suspect that'd be."

"And why in the nine hells not? You've been saying this since you were twelve, Jessie, it still doesn't make sense to me."

"I have the business! I have my shop –now, for real, since I finally bought the place." She glanced around proudly. "I can't go …changing my name and raising a family in the middle of all of that. There's no chance of Ian's taking the place over, so I'd lay pretty good odds of my being the only heir."

"And your little twin brothers?"

"Robby and Davy will inherit the Hogsmeade shop."

"And then who inherits yours?"

"I presume I'll have a nephew or niece by the time I die. And if not, Uncle Gard can have it."

"Why not a cousin? You don't think your Uncle Gard might have kids?"

"I strongly suspect Uncle Gard plays for _your_ team, Mel."

Actually, given rumors I'd heard at the Sticky Lick, I'd suspect that, too.

"Well, so that indicates the gene runs in your family. Supposing Robby and Davy grow up to prefer the company of the fabulous, so to speak. Then where's your tradition go?"

"…I never thought of _that_." Jessie suddenly looked a little more serious. "They're _two_, after all, it doesn't really occur to one…" I could tell she was considering the notion very seriously. "That _is_ a crazy thought."

"What is?"

"That I might wind up…having someone want to marry me." She gazed off into the distance a little, her eyes vacant. "Or…that I might wind up wanting to say yes." She had an adorably bemused little smile for a moment there, but just as quickly, she was right back to the Fourth, Herself. "Bit preposterous, though. I've got far too much to do with the war and the shop and with Diagon, I don't have time to be courting some man…"

"Yeah, but Jess…" I cut the ties of my crush right there. It was only right. "You might not have time _not_ to."

"What do you mean?"

"Jessie, if you like Charlie, you should go after him. And let him come after you. Live a little. This war is going to get worse before it gets better, and Diagon is always going to be Diagon, even if they manage to burn some of it to the ground."

"I'd like to see them try!"

"I wouldn't. My point is, Jess, you're spending so much time trying to defend your livelihood, you're not getting to live your life. For Merlin's sake, you've fallen in love and you're telling yourself not to."

"I never said I'd-"

"You're not the only one who can notice things." That hurt to say. "Jess, what's the point in fighting for something you're not enjoying? If I could tell you to do anything, it'd be to stop working for ten minutes and live, love, do everything! You take that redheaded dragon-keeper and love him like any moment you'll have to let him go. Not to be blunt or fatalistic, but we could all die this year. We're young, though, and we still have a right to _be_ young."

"But…there's just …_so_ much I have to do!"

"Jamesina Tickes, Herself, I'm shocked." I gave that sweet girl a rakish grin as I headed toward the door. "I thought it was your shop made Time-Turners."


	20. A Hat

Chapter Twenty: A Hat

I must admit, that was one of the choicest exit lines I've ever delivered. Even Mom's movies can't compare to some of the stuff we witches get the chance to say –just casually suggesting my friend commit a felony (to say nothing of bending the laws of time and space into a kinky pretzel,) for the sake of dating a guy, sneaky as you please. The thought of it still makes me giggle a little bit.

Of course, it's never a good idea to give one to a Ravenclaw. They have an unseemly way of improving on a perfectly good plan for perfectly normal mischief until it turns into a tactical maneuver worthy of the Aurory. And then they usually fuck it up. Gryffindors at least have the courtesy to fuck up through a respectable _lack_ of contingency planning. Ravenclaws think of every little detail in what could go wrong and then forget some little necessary on the way to carry it out. Sam, for instance, once planned to swipe back some tiddly thing Filch had confiscated. She nearly made a clean job of it, except that Professor Snape was a little curious as to why she was heading back from the caretaker's office without a skirt on.

That wasn't even Sam's worst incident of forgetful near-nudity. She showed up for her Care of Magical Creatures O.W.L. in a school jacket, skirt, little bobby socks, her House tie and a red brassiere.

I'm digressing as bad as Jess does. I swear, if she went to buy groceries the way she goes to tell a story, we'd find her in Belgium having tea with the Prime Minister.

What I was getting to, it's likely a bad job I suggested the Time-Turner idea to Jess. I can't see as how I made things any worse, though, and if nothing else, it probably also gave her the notion to use the damn thing to get some sleep. There were times that year when I nearly asked her to sell me an illegal one…you know, because we don't get enough illegal ones in our shop. That's a sticky thing to have in inventory, you know, and it's a good job we can just call Jess when that happens…

Anyway!

I had a surprisingly easy time telling my sisters what they already knew. They hugged me and asked me why I'd taken so long and we all got a bit teary-eyed. You know how we girls are when emotional things happen. Then Sam suggested we celebrate, and I brought up Muggle Madness Night, and then we jumped up and down a lot, clapping our hands with glee and looking stupidly excited at the thought of dressing like Muggles and going out to play in almost the dodgiest nightlife available. We do that sometimes when an idea sounds good –the jumping up and down, not the playing in dodgy spots.

After a bit of discussion of just which Muggles we wanted to go as, including a tense moment when Sam and I had to explain to Kendra that Dame Edna Everage is, in fact, a man, we got to work arranging our costumes. Kendra was bitching about all the Muggle performers she liked turning out to be men (which we really can't fault her on, unless it's to question taste,) and Sam was trying on a spectacularly tarty pair of leather pants when we heard the sudden whooshing of an authorized Floo entrance.

And given that there are only two people who have automatic authorized entrance into our fireplace, we scurried over to it posthaste, Sam hopping a little as she tried to pull up her pants. The smoke cleared and a figure with shopping bags and a large ladies' hat appeared.

"Darlings, I'm here! Are you busy?"

"Mum!" We ran to hug her –and then helped Sam up, and then kept going.

"Oh, it's so good to see you girls! I've just had a run-in with the second-most impossible woman in the history of the world." I took the bags on her right and Sam got the ones on her left, as we always do. "Isn't your shop open?"

"Not at this hour–"

"We may be open twenty-four hours in theory, but not when there aren't any customers. It's nearly dinnertime."

"That's _right!_ Stupid time zones…" Mum slid the second face on her watch up to reveal the third. "Yes, it _is_ after five here…_huh_. I love this watch, by the way. I was shooting a cameo appearance on one of the crime dramas and the director asked me wherever had I gotten it? I hope Jessie won't mind, I told him it was Gucci…Thing is, I don't think he believed me. Do you suppose she might sell me one like it, for a man, though?" Mum looked at the watch again. "There again, he might just prefer it _with_ diamonds, I think he's seeing that adorable guy from the revival of 'Gypsy' I saw last week."

"They revived 'Gypsy' _again?"_ I asked.

"Oh, darling, they _have to._ Every six years in America, we need a celebrity murder, a major sex scandal and a revival of 'Gypsy.' It's the circle of life, darling." Mum quit smoking when she was expecting us, but she still carries the holder and gestures with it. Looks a bit like Cruella De Vil, really. "We have the murder for the men, the scandal for the ladies, and 'Gypsy' for the gay male community. That's why I like them better."

"Mel's out now, Mum."

_"Really?"_ Even as I glared at Sam, our mother's face lit up like Christmas morning. "Oh, sweetie, I'm so glad."

"…Huh?"

"We've known for years, dear. It takes a lot of nerve to come out. _Oooh_, and just in time for the new premiere!" She did the very same hand-clapping, hopping thing we do when one of us gets a good idea. "I know the most adorable bass player from this all-girl rock band –they did a song in my latest movie, you'll love it, and my personal assistant's sister is also out, and quite the feisty little minx, if I do say so myself. The male lead tried to hit on her and she broke his jaw."

"Really?" We set down Mum's bags as Ken poured some apple cider for everyone. There were enough chairs in inventory to provide a comfy seat for each of us…probably why we never sold a stick of the 'furniture section' in three years.

You'll notice we don't say much in the first few minutes when Mum visits. Can't blame her, really. Her line of work's so blasted lonely, it's like a pressure gauge of conversation when she gets home. You just have to wait it out, let the worst of built-up isolation steam off, and then she's more like everyone else's mum…well, sort of.

"Oh, yes! Held up production for three solid weeks and then the screenwriters all but cut him out –probably because the drunken bastard hit on one of them, as well…so now it's a very _Ophelia-centric _updated version of _'Hamlet'_ with motorcycles…oh, and she doesn't die this time, _he_ does, right after he kills the rest of the main characters. She pops the Fortinbras-equivalent with a Desert Eagle and seizes control of the post-nuclear wasteland empire, Evita-style, with Horatio as her Che. Oh, and they've managed to make it a musical."

We stared.

"Mum…that sounds like utter crap."

"Crap, yes, but cult-classic crap!" She grinned. "Look at your Aunt Molly, she did nothing _but_ cult-classics and now she's got a DVD empire. The residuals _alone_ will send your children to Hogwarts."

"You've got to stop doing movies just because they're _fun,"_ Sam observed. "Whatever happened to serious drama?"

"The economy's too robust. The only serious drama America will see this year…I'm thinking the Brit-pics are going to take it. Comedy's doing well, but it's airheaded fluff, pretty much, with the exception of a few delicious little indie films…other than that, it's mostly action. When Americans are comfortable, they want Bruce Willis and Jean-Claude Van Damme blowing up badguys, 'cause it's not too real then. When Americans are poor, they want drama. It's a question of 'someone-has-it-worse'n me.' With this dotcom thing, though, it's all thrillers and shoot-em-ups…and indie flicks!"

"Always the indie flicks…" Sam mumbled.

"What happens to culture in the middle of a terrorist-based _war_, though?" I asked. "I mean, what's wizarding Britain going to do in the next few months?"

"Probably shit out more sunshine than a middle-school guidance counselor with Paxil diarrhea."

Kendra got a bit of cider up her nose at that.

"I'm serious. When people are scared, they want comfort and snuggling and warm fuzzies. It's enough to make you sick. You'll get cutesy, chopped-down versions of musicals that were edgy ten years ago, sometimes with a bit of the original cast thrown in for extra pathetic points. You'll get sequels to action franchises that should have been shot like a sick dog fifteen years before. Horror movies go entirely to pot –not that that's much of a drop, but still…oh, and you don't want to _see_ what that kind of mess does to children's films. The talking animals all take 'ludes. I saw it all at the end of the Seventies. Between the Iranian Hostage Crisis and the 1980 Olympics when our hockey team finally popped the U.S.S.R., movies kinda sucked."

"I do seem to recall some massive suckage, yes, at least if the video collection back at home indicates."

"I freely admit to taking more time than usual off to look after you three when that shit came down. You're the best excuse I've ever had to bail out of a sinking ship in the spinning blue water of Hell's toilet."

"And yet you stayed on for a post-apocalyptic bombed-out update of _'Hamlet'_ that sounds like the _'Vagina Monologues'_ on speed."

"_And_ a musical!"

"Jeez, Mum, couldn't you say one of us had cancer?"

"You're just saying that because I make you _watch_ my movies."

"Frankly, yes." Sam looked pained. She's always been the most vocally critical of us when it comes to films. She understands movies better, so she demands more from them. I usually find so many logical errors in the first ten minutes of a movie that any sense made after that makes it good. I also enjoy hot actresses who aren't my mum. Kendra is a fangirl, plain and simple. If her favorite actors and writers make a film together, she'll happily watch it seven times before realizing anything can possibly be the matter. "Did you screen it already?"

"Yes, and it doesn't suck as badly as you'd think. If you take it as a spoof of the _'Kendra: Warrior Babe of the Outland' _movies, or of anything Kenneth Branagh ever did, it actually works pretty well. And the soundtrack is amazing. You _will_ like that."

And then the pressure ran down.

"So, I ran into this horrible woman outside your father's shop. Apparently he's been selling banned books again and the Ministry had their panties all in a twist over it."

"Which books?"

"Oh, a couple of sex manuals, some bodice-rippers, a werewolf's memoirs and most of the Muggle Studies section...you know, the _good_ stuff. She even objected to those adorable Japanese comic-booky ones I picked out."

"Well, that _one_ manga you sent had more guns in it than some hunting stores…" Kendra remarked.

"The vampire one? I liked that!"

"Mum, I love you, but your taste is a little too …highbrow for the Ministry of Magic." I attempted to be diplomatic.

"Highbrow as in _raised_." Sam snorted. "The Ministry's not _used_ to movie stars, or Muggles, or anything that brings joy and light, pretty much. If it can't be found in your better British raisin ranch, the Ministry doesn't want to see Muggle stuff."

"Strictly senior-center," I agreed.

"They don't even appreciate _'Fanny Hill,'_" Kendra sighed mournfully. Mum, Sam and I stared at her. Ken frowned. "Okay, are you lot surprised I like classic smut, or that I can read? Because one of those is going to end in smacking."

"Classic smut!"

"Good answer!" She may not be the sharpest nail in the gun, but Kendra does have _some_ badass working for her. She is, after all, named for one of the most fascinating cult heroines of the Seventies bombed-out wasteland action film era. Molly Michon is one of Mum's best friends, and since Sam and I got somewhat more respectable names, we like to rib Ken about living up to the action-queen stereotype. Of course, we find it a bit iffy on the occasions when she actually does.

Incidentally, Samantha Endora Gillian Redfern is called that because Mum figured the first witch in her family should be named after the best-known witches in America. Sam's never forgiven her that one. My full name is Melanie Belle, after 'the two strongest women in _'Gone With the Wind,'_ that PMS headcase and her ilk be damned.' (I suspect the reason why I've only the one middle name is because they never say what Mammy's real one is.) Ken's right name is even worse, once you know the middles.

This is, of course, why Jessie's family –and their grand total of four names, doesn't faze us much. We know full well it could be worse.

Oh, yes, and in case my description was a bit lacking, my mother is tall, strikingly pretty and blond –but I think you might have guessed that last bit.

"I've always been proud of you girls for being able to handle adult topics," Mum remarked, taking off her long fur stole (faux, with a knife-holster in the lining for overly-zealous PETA folk,) and draping it on our hatstand. "I bet you know more than most women twice your age, simply because you refuse to let your minds be constrained by other people's morality." She set the big hat onto the hatstand's ball and cocked her head to the side, as if pleased by the look of it. "The Ministry seem like a lot of ignorant weasels and what's more, they're cowardly."

"Captain Obvious to the rescue," Sam gulped at her cider. "What-all did they try to do to Dad?"

"Oh, this little toad of a woman thought she was going to close the shop."

_"WHAT?"_

"Oh, don't worry, my dears. Mummy took care of it." With the empty cigarette-holder in her teeth, she really did look rather formidable. "I informed the little froggy that in order to close the shop, she would require a declaration submitted by the Hogsmeade Chamber and signed by a sixty percent majority of the Wizengamot, so she buggered off."

We stared again.

"…Well, and I _did_ threaten her a bit…"

"Mum…how do you know about-?"

"It was in your History of Magic textbook. I get a bit bored on the set sometimes, so I've taken to reading some of your old books. Astonishing how much is in the footnotes, too, though I still haven't found out what that 'Chamber' is…"

"You've been reading our old textbooks?"

"Darlings, exactly how much screen time do you think Gertrude _gets_ in _'Hamlet'_? Even in this new version where she's schtupping Claudius with the intention of killing him, there wasn't a lot to do on-set. I got a _lot_ of nice reading done."

"But why _those?"_

"Just because I'm not a witch doesn't mean I'm not interested in my family's world, you know." Mom looked a little hurt. "That, and to an outsider, it's really quite fascinating. Escapist, in a way. Everything the wizards have better than Muggles feels like happy fantasy, everything they have worse –well, those are usually the bits I stash it away to rib your father about later. And the structure of your government _is_ really interesting. Apparently it grew out of English common law as well as foundational documents, so while there is a decided resemblance to American government in theory, the end result is much more akin to the colonial governance of the old Empire."

Oh. That's another odd thing. Mum has a law degree with a political science minor. She left college to make her first movie and finished up when we were toddlers. Mainly she's used it for sense memory when playing Attractive Female Attorneys, but occasionally she will spit out a bit of remarkable jurisprudence and startle everyone during cocktail hour. It also comes in handy around contract negotiation time –which probably explains her position in the Screen Actors' Guild. She can appear fairly ditzy, but our Mum is not your stereotypical Hollywood actress.

"You were saying something about the Chamber," I interjected.

"Yes. According to the first charter of London in your world, there's something called the Chamber that used to house masters from all the guilds –you know, trade and service and all of that. The Ministry's charter was actually granted by them before the Magna Carta."

"So the Chamber created the Ministry before the Crown allowed the creation of Parliament?"

"Exactly."

"What does that mean?" Kendra looked confused.

"Well, ducks, I'm no expert, but it seems to me that if your friend Jessie's Chamber of Commerce is the same Chamber your textbook was on about –which is possible, if not extremely likely, well, then it would mean she has, in theory, the power of judicial review and executive veto over any action imposed on guild-controlled lands, persons or holdings by your Ministry."

We stared for a moment.

"We studied magic, Mum, not Legalish."

"In theory, anything the Ministry does wrong in Diagon, Jessie could chuck it out," I translated. "But it would have to be the same Chamber."

"Yes, and she'd have to be a Master within her guild, that's another thing," Mom explained. "Is she, that you know of?"

"I'm not sure."

"Because there's also a provision for the head of the chamber to become Lord Mayor of London in the event the Ministry should violate the original terms of its' charter, fail to meet quorum for any legislative action, or fall victim to what the documents call _'catastrophic State or Emergency risking Life, Limb and Propertie.'_ That's spelled with loopy f's for s's and all-italics, incidentally."

"Do we even _have_ a Lord Mayor of London?" Sam inquired.

Before Mum or I could answer, the bell over the front door went off. "Kendra! I thought you were locking up!" Sam scurried over to the door, only just managing to button those preposterous leather pants before the customer entered. "I'm so sorry, we're actually…_hi."_

Standing just inside our doorway was a tall, dark-haired man with a lopsided, hopeful smile.

"Is this… Redferns' Pawn and Secondhand?" he asked, smiling a little more. "They said it was on the left…"

It isn't often we see Sam speechless.


	21. A Note

Chapter Twenty-One: A Note

"I'm…sorry it's so late," the dark-haired man apologized, "but I was just wondering if you…maybe… have a luggage section…?"

Sam still couldn't answer, but given that the guy's voice suddenly trailed off as he looked at her, both customer and proprietor had apparently found what they were looking for.

They were about to be nauseating, so I spoke up:

"We do have a selection of luggage! I'm sure Sam here would be happy to show you-"

"Sam?" The guy's smile quirked up a little at the corner and he almost seemed to blush before evidently remembering that _oh, right, the world does _not_ stop upon the sudden encounter of a pretty girl_. "I believe you know my sister, then. I'm…uh, well, I'm trying to find a trunk or a suitcase, to get for her…she's going to need one soon…"

"What kind are you looking for?" Sam finally recovered her vocal abilities and gestured toward the stairs which led to what passed for our luggage section.

"Something strong, but fairly light, and with _loads_ of compartments…oh, and it should probably have a lock…" He bowed slightly as he motioned for her to lead the way and Sam blushed almost as red as he was.

Too late, they were nauseating. I glanced at Kendra and Mum, only to realize that the ability not to crack up laughing at cute might-be-couples was something I got from my father's side.

"Any…particular size the compartments should be?"

"It's for clockmaking tools, plus some clothes and stuff…oh, I'm Ian Tickes, by the way –the fifth, that is, Number Four is my Uncle Gard." He held out a big hand –and I do mean huge, wrapped in a Quidditch glove. Sam shook it.

"Sam Redfern –erm, well, _Samantha_ Redfern, that is…we –er, all have nicknames."

And that's how we met Jessie's big brother, or as Kendra and I privately dubbed him, the Fifth Himself.

"Jamesina's mentioned you fondly, yes," Ian's smile broadened and looked rather a lot like his sister's would if she suddenly were a guy. "You were in Ravenclaw with her, right?"

"Yes, I was!" Sam looked entirely too pleased that he knew her House.

"I kind of recognized you…at that Quidditch match of mine you four went to over Christmas break in your second year, you were the one in the blue school tie."

"I'd almost forgotten that. _Second_-year…"

"You _do_ look rather different now, but the –er, smile's the same." For one shining moment they gazed adorably at each other on the stairs –and then Sam's bitchy intellectual side kicked in. The eyebrow arched, the hand pulled out of the dishy guy's…

"Er…I'm an identical triplet, Ian. Idn't it a bit unlikely-"

"That, and your watch has a Ravenclaw crest on it. I saw when I shook your hand." Ian stopped smiling cutely and grinned, bending close to our sister's ear. _"It's how Jims tells you three apart, too,"_ he whispered.

I will say one thing for my smart and snarky sister. She appreciates cleverness, even when it's at her own expense.

"You're kidding me. That's how she…oh, I know what kind of a suitcase she needs!"

"Something prank-enchanted?"

"No, ordinary craftsman-case, lots of compartments, pretty standard." Sam smirked wickedly and steepled her fingers. "What we _fill_ certain compartments with, on the other hand…"

"I was only planning to include a couple of sex toys that defy reason and human anatomy for the purpose of making my sister blush. What have _you_ got in mind?" Ian's grin was easily as mischievous as our sister's.

"Oh, you've simply got to see our Adult Section!"

They scampered upstairs. Mum finally lost her battle with suppressed laughter and Ken pounded the counter as they guffawed. With the dignity of a professor, I cracked open some butterbeer and one of the wine coolers Mum prefers.

"How long before they realize they're poring over smutty things together like sorority sisters on spring break?" Mum asked.

"Not long," Ken replied smugly.

"Knowing Sam, he'll have been gone for an hour before that sinks in. Then she'll have a panic attack about the cute guy thinking she must be some kind of professional to be so calm about smutty toys."

"You sound sure."

"It happens twice a month."

_The next page has different handwriting -presumably pages may be out of order._

I had just had a butterbeer and a nice chat with Mel Redfern when an owl flew in and landed on Mrs. Miniver's perch. It was a remarkably ancient one and he looked positively exhausted –almost too weak to extend the talon with the letter in it. It was also a little wet, some light rain having started a bit ago.

Min clicked her beak in what sounded like exasperation before starting to preen his feathers.I gave him one of the gourmet owl treats she likes, but she didn't so much as cock a disapproving eye, as she does when I offer them to post owls. "Those are my treats," she normally seems to say –or perhaps "Aren't those awfully expensive to give out to everyone?" She seems to be aware of what things cost –probably from living in an owl shop so long, and she clicked her beak in surprise at me when I bought the most expensive brand they had at Eeylops.

I make a pretty good living. It is therefore my prerogative to get the best for my friends and pets. More fun than spending it on stuff for myself, really. I _have_ everything I want.

"Oh, you must be Errol!" I suddenly remembered the twins' mentioning the age and condition of the owl their parents used. 'No wonder Min's being so hospitable,' I thought. "News from the Burrow, then?"

_"Darling Jess,_

_Would you perhaps be amenable to yet another redhaired head at dinner this evening? Mum's been at the wedding preparations again and something tells me Ginny would best be separated from Bill's –er, 'French pastry' before homicide ensues. I did not know it was possible to _annoy_ another person into a state of temporary insanity without meaning to, or without even realizing you're about as enjoyable as a blonde case of dragon pox, but 'Phlegm's' sure pretty skillful at it._

_Is it wrong to feel smug, knowing my family already _likes_ the girl I'm seeing? Of course, I may have exceeded the safe quota of smugness felt, given that said girlfriend is also beautiful, smart and skillful, to say nothing of being a native speaker of English AND Fudgian? _

_Have I mentioned how glad I am that you aren't French? Or blonde? What do other guys see in a part-Veela who can't use a screwdriver without breaking a nail? I would so much rather love and be loved by a girl who not only looks pretty under a gazebo, but could probably build it herself in under four hours. A girl who cares more about what something does than how it looks with her hair, a girl whose response to garden gnomes is 'throwing contest!' and a smile, not 'sacre bleu!' and fainting…a girl who considers a Bludger-bat just as good an accessory as a parasol…I am damned lucky to have found you, Jamesina Tickes._

_Oh, and I'm planning to bring home an ice-cream cake from Fortescue's; what flavours do you like best?_

_Affectionately,_

_-Your Charlie"_

"…Wow."

Mrs. Miniver is an eminently practical owl. She came over and fanned me with her wings so I didn't faint, despite sinking into the chair and letting out a lovesick sigh that probably would've half-filled a tyre.

I basked in the glow of Charlie's letter only a few moments –okay, I read it five times in a row, savoring every line, before heading to my accounts desk to pen a reply.

Did I just…I really did. 'Pen a reply'? 'Savoring every line'? I sound like a fourteen-year-old who overdosed on Victorian novels and has to be forcibly detoxed with Muggle slasher movies before a musical breaks out. There could be power ballads if I don't make my tone a little less fluffy-bunnies and cupid-hearts!

Shut up. It's how I felt, anyway, soppy or not. So there.

I _started_ to write, but after three pieces of parchment bit the dust and I still lacked a proper opening, I decided to get up and give Errol another owl treat, and one for Min as well.

"Hey…you guys must handle some love letters, your line of work –I mean, being owls and all."

Min clicked her beak as if to say _"Not _enough_, dearie."_ Errol gave a weak chirp and molted a few feathers: _"Seven teenagers."_

"How would you go about starting it?"

Suddenly, Mrs. Miniver left her perch and flew to the accounts desk. She perched on my ledger and pulled at one of the many tiny drawers with her foot.

"What are you…Min, you're a genius!"

I once bought a Thinknotes Quill to finish an essay for Professor McGonagall after a repair job went wonky. The mainspring of the cheap knockoff watch I was meant to be fixing for detention had popped out, sliced my hand right open –and that moron Lockhart tried to clean the blood off at about the same time he tried to mend the cut, covering my hand in tawdry rhinestones for half a day. Even Madam Pomfrey was briefly stumped by that misadventure, and on her suggestion I invested a few Galleons in a quill capable of writing down what I thought.

She neglected, however, to suggest a model equipped with an Anti-Digression Charm, or at least one _without_ a Veritaserum liquid core.

Suffice it to say, the quill in question had helped me finish a seven-foot jewel of an essay that featured intricate detail on almost everything but what it was supposed to be about. I began all right, describing what one had to be careful of in mineral-to-animal transfigurations, then somewhere in the step-by-step for the O.W.L. standard teapot-to-tortoise task, I got a bit sidetracked and wound up telling the story of Ian's pet turtle, a creature that lived well, but suffered much. And then I got back to it, but veered into china patterns, and then there was a bit about a plate I broke as a little kid, and…

I am very lucky in that Professor McGonagall gets a large number of boring essays and has a wonderful sense of humor. (I defy statistical science in that we have a near-identical taste in china patterns.) Needless to say, the quill had gotten very little use, apart from a lend or two to Granddad when he wrote in to the Daily Prophet, as it _does_ have an obscenity-blocking charm one can activate.

But I set it up, nonetheless, dipping it in the ink and setting it on the page. What _did_ I want to say…

It wrote quickly...a very interesting and well-done letter that I could perhaps _show_ Charlie after we'd both had a lot to drink. It got across all the ideas I'd had in mind, plus a few extra I wasn't sure I wanted to admit to, especially not if he happened to read it in public.

I tried again, this time activating the obscenity-blocking charm. When putting your true thoughts on paper, sometimes an invisible censor can save one a lot of embarrassment…or wondering where one _heard_ of such _possibilities_.

Why, _yes_. That _was_ an innuendo. _Shocking_, isn't it?

Oh. I'm using the same quill to write this story, by the way. As if you couldn't tell!

_"Dear Charlie,_

_I'd be delighted to have Ginny over! It's roast-chicken night and as usual, I chose a bird that probably could have played for __England__. Better too big and tasty leftovers than too small and rumbly stomachs by bedtime, Granddad used to say. _

_I would imagine someone like Fleur could probably be irritating to someone like Ginny. As irritating as you might find my family, though, I'd doubt. It is a lucky thing your family is so nice, and an even luckier one that the ones I know seem to get along with me okay._

_But then, I'm convinced your lot could probably manage to get along with anyone. Remember your mother and Granddad talking about when we were small? I wished the floor would've swallowed me when they got to my imaginary friends, but the notion of your being a little kid with a pretend friendly dragon called Box…well, that kind of made up for it. Not that there will be any ribbing from the former keeper of an invisible unicorn._

_Cinnamon ice cream with carrot cake is the special this week, but you know me, I'll eat anything."_

I stopped and pulled the quill away from the parchment. On the blotter of the desk, it wrote what I had almost said in the letter…something I didn't dare say in a note, no matter how much my rebellious mind and complicit quill wanted to.

_"See you at seven, then! Hope Ginny likes baked potatoes with roast chicken!"_

How to end it? 'Affectionately yours,' seemed appropriate -wait. Charlie didn't pluralize 'yours' in his letter. He had written 'your,' which was to say, 'mine,' from my point of view…

Oh, my.

I shut my eyes and bit my lip. I also drew my wand from where I'd been keeping it (tucked into my ponytail, incidentally,) and pointed it at the page.

'Now listen, quill,' I thought, 'No fair writing _that_. Just a nice closing and then my name, or I'll erase it with my wand and then probably put you back in the drawer for at least six months. Okay? Count of three!'

I let go of the quill and it skated across the page before hopping happily –no, _smugly_ back into the inkwell.

'Dammit. What did that stupid plume…oh.'

_"I remain, your affectionate_

_-Jessie"_

That would do.

I seemed, at that moment, to recall stories of arranged or semi-arranged marriages, prior to which the intendeds courted exclusively by correspondence. The results, according to the Ravenclaw girls' room library of romance novels, were invariably true love matches that lasted until death did the characters part –usually of tuberculosis or some other heartrendingly pathetic thing. I also seemed to recall the correspondence-courtship idea having been common in real life.

I wonder how in the nine hells they managed it.

I had just sent the letter off with Min, who was under instructions to give it to Charlie and no other Weasley (how the twins would howl if they found it!) when yet another owl flew in and joined Errol on the porch. I like a busy day, but the business of answering –yes, I'll say it, my first love-letter –had taken a lot out of me.

And yes, I _did_ tuck Charlie's letter into the inside pocket of my waistcoat near the heart. If people weren't meant to be hopelessly romantic sometimes, then why's Madame Malkin put pockets there?

The new letter wasn't nearly so exciting as Charlie's had been –but it did come close, and to be fair, I'd been anticipating it since an age wherein boys were 'icky' and love-letters something to mock older siblings about.

It was, to be precise, my Guild summons; the 'oh, we hear you're doing well enough to try out for Master, come to Switzerland and sit the hardest exam of your career so far,' letter all journeyman clockmakers dreamed about. I was, of course, still a journeyman at that point, despite owning my own shop and placing first in a British watchmaking tournament –which I had, naturally, forgotten I'd entered in the kerfuffle of the shop being attacked and elections and, y'know, stuff.

I was a little surprised to see it, actually. Normally journeymen are summoned at roughly age twenty-five, though the family average is closer to twenty-two. I had gotten my journeyman's license at fifteen, a _little_ early, and my passing novice levels into apprenticeship wasn't any kind of British record for early age. Of course, that might've been partly because of my grandfather's sitting his at the age of four, but six was only a year lower than the family average.

There aren't many women in the International Guild of Timepiece Artificiers, Wizarding, but I was by no means remarkable for that. I wasn't even the first Jamesina Tickes to sit the masterpiece.

It wasn't even that I wasn't prepared, though I could certainly do with more practice before the trip. I would also want some new traveling clothes, considering I had a full two inches of sock showing under some of the trousers I'd gotten since leaving school, and a good smart tool-case was definitely on the shopping list…oh, hang it, I was terrified.

And it was, naturally, at that very moment that my big brother thumped in from the rain outside.

"Are you dating Charlie Weasley?"

Oh, _soot._


	22. Some Handcuffs

Chapter Twenty-Two: Some Handcuffs

"Um –what gave you that idea?" Jessie squeaked, looking a bit like a mouse before suddenly looking just as indignant as I was. "Wait a minute! When did you _get_ here? I didn't know the team was in London!"

"Er…Perhaps I should've given my baby sister a hug before interrogating her?" I apologized sheepishly.

"Perhaps you should've!" Grown-up or not, it was nice to discover I can still pick my sister up with my bear hugs. "And you're in time for dinner! Thank goodness I pick out oversized birds every time we have roast chicken-"

"Roast chicken?" I must've visibly drooled.

"Oh, nice! Your eyes still do that bulging thing! Your tongue seems to have gotten a bit longer, though. Should I mention there's jacket potatoes, too? I think the Cheddar broccoli would be too much to mention, carpet's new, after all…"

"Are you aware that the team has a private nutritionist who hasn't let me eat anything worth eating in six months?"

"Weirdly enough, I _was_, in fact, aware of that. Fred and George left a Quidditch magazine out a week ago that had an interview with the git. I was going to send a parcel of cookies, but I was forcibly stopped, lest it alter your weight ratio before the match against Bulgaria, on which the twins had a number of Galleons."

"Were they pleased we won?"

"Very. Said it was a damn dirty game, though."

"Yes. Some hag of a reporter mentioned my sister had been seen out with their Seeker. I got a bit…Ticky."

"…I am genuinely sorry. That wasn't a fake rumor –though it was only the one blind date, I haven't seen him since."

"Oh, I know all about it now. After the game, Krum and I had drinks and wound up becoming great friends."

"That's good!" I did not, you will notice, tell Jessie precisely how much we drank.

"He was a little disappointed that you never owled him back."

"…Well, he's a very nice guy, but don't you think…well…much as I'd like to date a guy who shared so many wonderful qualities with my big brother, there's a fine line between 'could be friends' and 'Bulgarian spider-clone.' It was weird, y'know?"

She looked so much like Mum I had to look away for a second. Luckily, there were watches and clocks all over in which I could feign interest. Jessie never knew our mother and probably doesn't realize how much she can bother Dad and I without ever meaning to –there's just such a resemblance in her voice and gestures. It's easier for me; I know Jessie's a right brat if you rub her wrong and she doesn't look so close I can't cope with it. Dad, however…

Anyway.

"So Charlie's an upgrade, then?"

"Yeah! He's got a lot of your interests, but not so many it freaks me out, plus he's got red hair and that _cute smile_ and he's probably the only person 'sides me who isn't freaked out by the Redferns and he can write these _letters_…"

There was a sigh in her voice I'd heard in my own fangirls. Good lord. I grinned at the cuteness of it and she suddenly went white, realizing she'd just admitted to dating him. "Oh, I'm boned." That made me jump.

"Not _really_, I hope?"

"Not really your business!" Now she was a little Ticky herself. "What if I _did_ bone him? A lot? And in _kinky ways_, with shibari ropes and _handcuffs_ and stuff that's this-close to Dark magic, all before dinnertime? And in my workroom with all the leather tools! I'm a grown woman, Ian, I can bone who I want to bone!"

I staggered back into a chair. It wasn't that I believed her. That didn't seem possible. But on the other hand, where in hell had Jessie heard of shibari ropes? It was like discovering your great-grandmother's taste in porn –okay, having actually done that, rather more shocking. That, and she'd never said 'bone' in that sense before.

"…You're my little sister! It freaks me out!"

"So don't think about it! You don't think it freaks me out when Quidditch Weekly runs an item on the STDs groupies get and sometimes spread through whole teams and immediately panic that you'll come home with genital spattergroit? I just re-did the chairs!"

"Um…first of all, I do not bone groupies. Secondly, I don't think there's such a thing as genital spattergroit or our Chaser would have had it by now. And thirdly, I never thought you'd date someone from my graduating class! It's just a bit startling!"

"Oh, I'm not old enough to date people your age, now? Are you so ancient? We're not even a full seven years apart!"

"Jess, I never said I wasn't happy you're dating him!"

"Damn straight! You never- _huh?"_

"Charlie's an incredibly decent guy! We were as close to friends as two opposing Seekers could be in school. I'd rather see you with him than Viktor Krum, who could probably drink the team under the table, not just me. And if it had to be a Gryffindor, better a Seeker, and if it had to be a Weasley, better him than that git Percy. It's actually kind of nice!"

"…Oh."

"…I'm sorry. I shouldn't have put you on the defensive like that. I know you get that a lot from Dad."

"Ian, I haven't seen Dad since the break-in with the Death Eaters. And even then, I'm pretty sure Uncle Gard dragged him."

"Then you haven't heard…Jessie, Dad's moving the showplace."

"What?"

"He's closing his share of the Hogsmeade shop and moving Sarah and the twins to America. Uncle Gard doesn't own enough to stop him and Granddad's…he isn't well, Jess. I think he means to let Dad do it."

"He can't!"

"Actually, Jess, he can. He owns enough of it, if Granddad caves, he can move the entire business overseas to anticipate the war."

"This is about You-Know-Who? That moldy bag of snake bones let a pack of sixth-years smash my window? What the hell kind of coward would run from that?"

"…A coward who lost his wife last time You-Know-Who hit up Diagon?"

"Mum wouldn't have run like this!"

In that instant, all angry and glaring, Jessie looked a bit more like our Great-Granny. We lost her, too, the last time You-Know-Who attacked Diagon. Jessie was a baby then, how strange that she took after Mum and Great-Gran so much? She dragged out the big shop ledger, a massive thing that dated from the seventeen-hundreds. I was a little shocked that she could lift it, let alone slam it down on the worktable with such…was that _authority_ in my little sister's eye?

I'd clearly been away for far too long with the Quidditch team.

"I own the Diagon Alley shop outright," she asserted, pointing to an entry in the ledger with decided pride. "Since that purchase, I own almost forty-five percent of James W. Tickes and Sons. I could take over with another sixty thousand or so, but I've only got…let's see…" She flipped open a smaller ledger, covered in purple leather with 'JWT IV' marked on it in glitter. I snorted a bit at the sight.

"_That's_ your personal?"

"Kendra Redfern made the cover for me in fifth year when I passed journeyman. It'd break her heart if I didn't use it –'sides, I like purple."

A clocksmith's personal ledger is a serious document; not only is it a financial register, it records the details of every watch and clock made and repaired over the course of a guild craftsman's life. Usually it is started the day a novice becomes an apprentice –sometimes it is started when a skilled amateur joins the guild. Jessie's, therefore, contained every detail of her business life since shortly after her sixth birthday. (If it weren't for Compacting Charms, she probably couldn't carry it in a pocket.)

Mine, sorry to say, hadn't had a new entry since I was sixteen or so. I'm not nearly the clockmaker my sister is. My personal was mainly full of small things like replaced crystals and case re-plates…I think I'd only built about ten pieces total, at least five of which Jessie had helped me with.

I should perhaps explain that my sister and I have always been very close. Our father is not the best man in the world, and our grandfather tried his best, but in many ways, we were left to parent ourselves with some help from our Uncle Gard, who is young enough, we consider him more of an older sibling. I was never very good at clockmaking. Not at all. I'd pretty much scraped by with mediocre appraisals of my movements, decent ones in crystals and faceplates and occasionally pretty good ones in my band design.

"There. I have that much in my personal account."

I goggled at the sum for a moment. I'm a professional athlete and my accounts weren't as healthy as Jamesina's –nor did I know any other professional athletes whose were.

"Damn."

"Don't act so shocked. I simply don't spend any more money than I did when I made AJ scale." She had been an Apprenticed Journeyman for her last years of Hogwarts, working in the family shops on break, and she'd only been a Journeyman Manager since Granddad's heart attack. She was now a Journeyman Owner –and they make a _lot_ more. Any form of apprentice has a lower wage, since part of their work's profit goes into shop accounts to subsidize the on-the-job training they receive. Journeymen take a lower cut, but there is a cut until a clockmaker sits their masterpiece. "Actually, considering I didn't have to pay for anything but materials when the roof was replaced, I tend to spend rather less for shop overhead."

"How'd you pull that off?"

"Fred and George helped me –taught me how to nail slate and everything. There's a lot of fun stuff they know how to do. I even replaced the broken back stair by myself last week."

"I noticed I didn't fall through it."

"Actually, I was just going to ask –why did you come in through the back door?"

"I stopped into Redferns' first."

"Really? Find anything special?"

"They have a few vintage Quaffles in stock that I suspect Ludo Bagman pawned-"

"Correctly."

"Thought so. Well, they're historical artifacts and should rightly be in the clubhouse museum, so I convinced Miss Samantha Redfern to sell them to me off the record and donate them in her shop's name for the advertising."

"You paid her to donate them for their own credit? Um…"

"I paid her _almost_ what a private collector could, and my stock goes up when the club museum is doing well. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement, if anything." Jessie shook her head with a giggly smile and I sighed. "One of them was the 1938 World Cup Quaffle, had the hex mark on it and everything. It's a priceless piece of sport history."

"You know, you could've paid private-collector rate and put them on permanent loan to the museum. You'd collect almost twice as much as your stock alone with the insurance and share-of-take factored in."

"Yes, but how would that help Redferns' shop?"

"I'm not saying you shouldn't have done it your way. The Redferns are some of my best friends and it's wonderful of you to handle matters the way you did." For some reason, that made my cheeks feel a little warm. It's one thing to be pleased with yourself, having your little sister proud of you is another thing. "But considering you'd only met my old schoolmates once, what brought on the sudden interest in doing them a good turn? Or should I say-" her eyebrow arched slightly and I realized my slip-up, "doing _Sam_ a good turn?"

"…I asked her out. I'll be nice about Charlie forever if you tell me where I should take her this Saturday."

"Oh, you are _so_ boned…"

"What do you mean?"

"You think you're overprotective? Sam's an identical triplet, Ian, and her sisters –lovely women that they are, do not take kindly to brain-damaged Quidditch jocks." I started to protest but Jessie continued: "Which, of course, you are not, so the difficulty will mainly lie, I suspect, in convincing them of that fact."

"I'd like to convince _Samantha_ of that fact. As for her sisters-"

"Oh, I wouldn't be worried about Sam. Her taste runs to athletic males anyway, and given that she's the cagiest of the lot, she probably tested you four times in conversation before you even got the chance to ask her out. And given that she appears to have accepted…"

"She did!"

"Well, then you've clearly passed her preliminary round of tests. What are you worried about?" Jessie grinned at me and I realized I was actually blushing.

"I like her! She's not like any other girl I've met in years. It's fascinating, the way she talks, so stern and knowing one moment and then so mischievous –it's like if Professor McGonagall developed a sense of fun! Well, one that didn't involve Quidditch. I'm just …_interested_, I guess. What made you interested in Charlie?"

"…I think it was his smile." Jessie sighed. "And the burns on his arms, and the way he's taller than me, but not super-tall, and the way he looks after everyone…I think that must tend to happen to second siblings. Look at where I fall in the business, and at Uncle Gard compared to Dad. You and Bill Weasley tend to lead things and set the examples and get the attention –and take the worst of the punishments; we seconds still have older-kid responsibility, but a little protection from you firstborns. We're taught to be strong and we have good examples, but we aren't all spoiled, like the littlest ones tend to be. I guess Charlie and I are similar that way."

"You've been reading about birth-order theory, then?"

"For the silliest reason."

"What is it? –By the way, Samantha wouldn't happen to be the…"

"That'd be why I've been reading it." Jessie picked up a new-looking book and tilted it so I could see the name 'Redfern' inked along the pages' edge. "The trips don't actually know which one of them is the oldest, or middle, or youngest. They got this book, though, thinking they might figure it out somehow, but the detailed description only extends to twins. Triplets get two sentences, maybe, and there's nothing about whether Metamorphmagic affects things –it, you know, being a Muggle book and all."

"Can't they check their birth certificates? I mean, shouldn't there be a time-stamp or something?"

"They're all listed as born at five-twenty-seven p.m.," Jessie explained, looking a bit perturbed. "Either their mom holds the land-speed record for delivering babies, or someone at the Ministry got sloppy. If they listed it down to seconds, it'd be perfectly clear, but the time-stamp takes the reading of the nearest available timepiece. So if there wasn't a second hand, well, I guess there's no data on seconds, then."

"What if it were a stopped timepiece?"

"I've considered that. The difficulty is that their Mum went into labor in the back room of their Dad's bookstore. I traced the stamp to their father's pocketwatch –and, having cleaned it myself; it appears to be in fine order."

"Tickes watch?"

"Naturally. The Gardner Tickes Skeleton, 1965 model year, in the twenty-four carat gold finish with company-stock engraving and the optional picture-frame in the case."

"No second hand." The Gardner Tickes Skeleton, being an elegant example of a watch that aimed more for form than function, had only offered a second hand on models since 1975. A skeleton watch, incidentally, is one with crystals set into the face and back, so the movement is plainly visible. Some watchmakers consider them unnecessary and faddish –we think they're a point of pride. Not every timepiece has the courtesy to show off its' best features.

"Nope."

"You remember _everyone's_ make and model, then?" I poked Jessie in the ribs. "Or just friends? You get more Ollivanderish every year."

"I do not remember everyone's make and model," she protested. "Just…most people's. It's not that strange."

"I bet you've got the repair record of every watch you've ever fixed off by heart."

"I bet you're a silly –wait a bloody second!"

"I'm a silly _what?"_

"The repair record!" Jessie scampered across the workroom to the shelves of repair records. "If the trips' father's watch was stopped, it would have been fixed here or at Hogsmeade, he's that loyal. The trips were born same year as me, but three weeks after…here!" She took down a volume and began to flip pages. "It would be under 'Redfern, August…'"

"So the watch may actually have been stopped?"

"…According to this, it _was_. Apparently, he sat down on it sometime that week and popped the spring right out of alignment. The repair was done three days after the trips' birthday…well! I'm a _bit_ closer to helping them sort that out!"

"Do they ask you for help a lot?"

"If you're asking 'am I close to them,' the answer is 'yes, quite.' What's more, I don't think they've any idea that we _aren't_ the sort of brother and sister who fight a lot."

"…By this you mean…"

"Well, Sam will want the same sort of advice you asked me for just now, Ken and Mel will commiserate about how dashed strange it is to have siblings dating, at the same time speculating gleefully on how idyllic it'd be if things went especially well. In short, I'm fairly certain they think I'm the sort of rotten little sister who'd sell you out to her hen friends…when in fact, I may take some malicious glee in double-agent matchmaking."

"That sounds dreadful! I am tempted to owl Bill Weasley and catch up." As I said, sometimes Jessie can be a right brat.

"Dreadful nothing! It's only what siblings do when their friends are asked out." Her smirk became a soft smile. "Sam's favorite food is Italian and her sisters don't care for it nearly half as much, so it's a rare treat. She also loves Muggle movies –don't let the way she criticizes them and picks them apart fool you. Her favorites are the ones from the Thirties and Forties, of course."

"Naturally. I remember her getting you into them."

"There's an old Muggle theatre that shows them still, mainly for old people and hopeless romantics –it's the one the Muggle Studies field trips go to, do you know where it is?"

"I can find it."

"And, despite a complete violation of the Girl Code in divulging this, I must inform you that Sam's favorite dessert in all the world is a milk chocolate Magnum."

"Seriously?"

"Well, she is half-Muggle-born, after all…"

"No, it's that I like them, too."

"Well! A point of compatibility! Very nice!" She was really being horribly smug. "I tell you what, if things go well and you want to 'take her back to your place,' as it were…"

"While you're in Switzerland?"

"Yes, while I'm in Switzerland…" Jessie leaned in conspiratorially. "You can have the apprentice bedroom. It keeps paparazzi off your tail, and the back door'll be easy for her to sneak out of, come morning."

"…You've gotten broad-minded."

"When was I ever not?"

"I notice you're not offering the master suite."

"…I'd have to tidy it up, first, wouldn't I? At least the apprentice bedroom's clean. Bed's a double-wide, shouldn't be cramped since my redecorations –'sides, wouldn't want you to stumble onto handcuffs or shibari rope."

I sputtered briefly, then grinned.

"I expect Samantha will bring her own."

Jessie turned as red as I had been a second earlier. We stared at each other for a second, then cracked up laughing like schoolchildren. It was good to be back at home.

"You will be eating some of this enormously oversized roast chicken?" Jessie gestured toward the oven, from which a lovely smell was indeed emanating. I peered in the little window and just about gasped.

"That IS a big one. I didn't know they came that size."

"Found it down the market. I always buy biggish ones."

"You're sure it isn't a turkey?"

"Tag said chicken. Is there much difference?"

"Er…some, but not too much. It'll go smashing with jacket potatoes."

"That reminds me to put them in." She gaily opened the fridge and began counting out foil-wrapped potatoes. "Two for you, two for Charlie, two for Ginny, they're little ones, two for me, four for the twins…that_ is_ a dashed lot of spuds…"

"Do you regularly cook for six people, then?"

"Sometimes more, why?"

"Jess! You run your own shop, you're going to sit Master's, you're the Chairwoman of the Chamber, you live here all alone and you're planning to try and buy Granddad out! You're not supposed to be _cooking for six people!"_

"Great-Granny did."

"Yes, but don't you think modern life and being one of the wealthiest shops in Diagon should have some conveniences?" She blinked, as if startled to be considered rich. "Hire a housekeeper! Maybe consider buying one of the house-elves the purebloody gits keep fencing for tax debt. At least order in sometimes!"

"Oh, I do order in. Sometimes twice a month."

"You're incorrigible, you know that?"

"Yes." She nodded apologetically. "Nothing for it, though. Can I presume you'll be in London a little while?"

"Three months at least, Jess. It's the off season and camp isn't for weeks and weeks."

"Really? It's over, then?"

"…I knew you only paid attention to the bit I was in, but honestly!"

"I'm kidding, you great pillock!" She ruffled my hair some –had to stand on tiptoe to do it, but such is height. "Speaking of, then, can I assume you'll be staying in my lavishly appointed apprentice room, rather than renting some ungodly hellhole of a bachelor flat? I can promise home cooking and a minimal number of annoyingly noisy fans."

"Don't be insulted when I say it looks like you could use the help."

"Insulted?"

For the first time since I'd been home, Jessie sank into a kitchen chair. She looked a sight, leather apron pocked with burns, collar undone and hair askew. I also realized she didn't appear to have slept in days. "I think the proper term is 'relieved.'"

"Well, if you're taking on all this, plus the loan to buy Granddad out…"

"I won't need too big a loan. If I invest a third of my capital into property, I can offer another third and finance the rest with equity advances. Dodge the tax something great."

"Who on earth would be so daft as to buy property right as a war's starting?"

"I would, Ian. Everyone's selling out –especially the absentee landlords of certain new but abnormally well-heeled shops. Right now it's only worth their while to stay if they raise the rent higher than it's ever been in town, and a lot of tenants can expect to take heavy hits in the upcoming scuffle. My capital's not doing me any good at present, and if I convert it to property, I can borrow against it at a lower tax rate and what I won't be making in investment and growth funds, I'll be making half of in rent."

"You're still losing half your potential gains."

"You said yourself not two minutes ago that I've got one of the wealthiest shops in Diagon. If I buy out Granddad and our moronic sire decides to split with his share for America, I will own the family business almost outright…with my beloved Ian Gardner partners, of course."

She was right. With Granddad's shares, the business would consist of herself as master and Uncle Gard and I as journeyman partners. It didn't sound so bad, especially considering Quidditch was only likely to last me another ten seasons, tops. Jessie's a much easier manager than Granddad, she's sharper with books, and she doesn't grate on me the way our stepmum does. Jess will bake two dozen cookies and then inform us they're cooling on the stove. Our stepmum isn't happy until she's brought one to everybody, usually with a hug. Not to dismiss her snuggly attitude, but it's a bit cloying –all right, it drives me mad.

"I'd like that situation fine."

"Well, given that the shop's pretty likely to survive the war, as is most of the property I had an eye to acquire…we'll do okay. What we lose out on in interest, we'll pick up in trust and respect –and, if all else, a lot of people will owe us favors. Something tells me that in time of war, favors and loyalties can be more valuable than piddly money."

"…Now you're reminding me of Great-Granny."

"Good. I try."

"You'll buy the property before you leave?"

"I have an appointment for tomorrow, I can see to it then. I was thinking I'd take the evening train."

"I don't like the notion of you going to Switzerland all alone." She stopped and looked at me as if I were mad. "I mean, self-sufficient businesswoman, defender of the shop, elected official and mistress of the Beater-bat…you're still only twenty and I do worry about you going alone on international weekend trips."

"Ian Gardner Tickes the fifth, I swear-"

"Why don't you invite Charlie?"

She jammed like a blown regulator-gear. I took the opportunity to grin as I added, smoothly: "I'll just go up and pack your handcuffs."

Sometimes I _do_ like to mess with her.


	23. Some Tickets

Chapter Twenty-Three: Some Tickets

It was a rare enough occasion that I received a royalty check for any of my books. I had certainly never seen one of the size that an owl had brought to my parents' house just before we headed out toward Diagon Alley (I had, naturally, forgotten to update my address to the twins' spare room above the shop,) but, as Ginny quickly theorized, the American company that had just merged with Obscurus Books was probably reprinting something of mine for the Stateside market.

"Dragons _are_ rather popular over there," she explained. "There's a lot more open space, especially in the Western states, and Hagrid says there's even some experimental breeding allowed. So your book about Horntails could probably be a bestseller with the Yanks."

"That, or they're interested in me as a writer because my brother and sister are friends of the great Harry Potter."

"I doubt it. You've never written about Harry."

"Well, no, but I can't imagine there'd be much of a market for-"

"You're doubting yourself again. Do I need to tell Mum you're suffering from low self-esteem?"

"Peace, no! Between her attempts at consolation and dinners at Jessie's house, I'd weigh twenty stone in a month." There was some truth in that; I actually had put on a little weight since moving in with the twins. Mum had said I looked thin after coming back from Romania, though, so I guessed I was still all right.

"What are you going to do with the money, then?"

"Oh, I thought I'd put some into savings, pay my next three months' rent in advance so I don't have to worry about it, pick out and order Christmas presents early…and then with the rest, I thought…well…"

"Any inclinations towards a jewelry store?"

"Yes, actually. I thought it might be nice to get earrings for Mum this year." For some reason, that comment made Ginny smack herself in the forehead. "What?"

"I was hinting at something a little more romantic. Maybe something for a certain clock-making lady friend?"

"Oh. You mean something of a ring nature, or just something sparkly?"

"Something sparkly. I think there's quite enough engagement in this family for the moment. Besides, I think Phlegm would eat her."

"She would not!"

"If there were another possible Weasley bride? _Please_. Phlegm would smile so big the top of her head would wobble and possibly fall off, all the while hating the eyebrows off of any woman unfortunate enough to beguile one of my big brothers during dress rehearsal for her big day."

"But Jessie's not a threat –I mean, not the way Fleur seems to look at things. I think she'd be pleased and happy to have another potential sister-in-law."

"Oh, right, like the one she has now is turning out to be such a friend. I thought she was going to spit up a kidney when I suggested a pick-up Quidditch game in the yard."

"Jessie's a clocksmith. I'm sure Fleur's fondness for all things pretty and sparkly will smooth over the fact that Jess is easily twenty times more useful and better liked by everyone who isn't Bill or Ron."

"…It's funny that you refer to your girlfriend as 'useful.'"

"I don't mean it as a bad thing. It's just…well, when you spend any amount of time with a person who doesn't appear to have any interests or capabilities apart from looks and some magic skills, a person who actually does know how to do something helpful and challenging looks a heck of a lot better."

"So when you say 'useful,' you really mean 'not Phlegm.'"

"…At the risk of admitting that I don't like my brother's fiancée –and I do! Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Fleur is a wonderful person and though we may find her annoying and vapid now, it's at least reasonably possible that she has some redeeming characteristics –okay, you're right."

"Thought so."

"How can she be so bright and still lack any interests outside of her job, Bill and looking a tart? She must have been so boring in the common room at school –I mean, is it normal for girls to be that one-sided?"

"We have four of her in Gryffindor, at least."

"Bloody hell."

"So, yeah, you seem to have won the girlfriend lottery with a girl who has her own pliers and all," Ginny smirked.

"I do like that you like her," I replied, smiling. "It is nice to know that your girlfriend gets along with your family and vice-versa. It's a little terrifying to know that they might team up on you, but then again, if your family and your girlfriend decide you need teamed up on, I guess you probably do."

"I like that she actually _does something_ other than look pretty."

"She _is_ pretty," I argued.

"Yes, Charlie. Your girlfriend is pretty. And if she's aware of that fact, I will personally ride Norbert home. Phlegm is pretty and she knows it, which makes her insufferable. Jessie has no idea that she isn't still an insecure third-year when it comes to looks and she probably never will, which makes her considerably nicer to be around."

"How do you know-"

"I've helped her pick out clothes, Charlie. It was _news_ to Jamesina Tickes that clothing unlike that of her uncle and grandfather does exist and can be worn by female clockmakers."

"It would be interesting to see what she looked like in a dress, maybe."

"Why not invite her to the wedding, then? If nothing else, I'm curious to see what sort of dress she'll let me pick out."

"Why wouldn't she pick her own dress?"

"For the same reason you ask Bill's advice on what to wear for dates."

"Is Jessie hopeless that way as well?"

"Terribly. I can only hope you allow my future nieces and nephews to learn otherwise from me."

For some reason, that suggestion made me stop cold in my tracks and smile daftly into the distance for a moment. I seemed to picture a couple of little red-headed children in glasses happily taking apart a clock with their small, but still a little bit bigger-than-average hands. Perhaps they might even have her eyes. Ginny interrupted my reverie with a sudden snap of her fingers. "You were _not_ just imagining that."

"Actually, I was-"

"You've been dating for less than three months. Do not pull a Bill on me, Charlie, or I swear I'll send your books to Percy for fact-checking. You may date my friend, and you may even marry her someday, which would be splendid, but you will do so after a decent interval, during which we shall all struggle to recover from _l'affaire_ _d'Phlegm."_

"And, you know, win this war against You-Know-Who."

"Details, details. If you announced an engagement, it'd probably kill Mum right now."

"Then what, pray, will _you_ do if Harry brings something sparkly for you sometime?"

It is not often that I make my sister choke on her gum.

"That's ridiculous. We're still in school."

"Yes, but while a thing like lack-of-a-job might stop, say, Ron, Harry has money, a residence and a pretty assured career in the field of You-Know-Who-stopping and tolerating Rita Skeeter. You never know. He might be ready to commit at an early age."

Why, yes. I _do_ take glee in pushing her buttons. What self-respecting older brother doesn't?

"What makes you think _I_ am, though? I think I'd prefer to have some fun before settling down."

"You've been through three boyfriends in almost as many semesters. Isn't that fun enough?"

"No, I mean _real_ fun. Like playing pro Quidditch."

"Oh."

"Really, do you blokes understand _anything?"_

We had just about arrived at Gringott's, and I realized how strange it felt to walk past Jessie's shop without going inside. It might have just been the hours since Mum's lunch sandwiches, but I could have sworn I smelled roast chicken coming from the door-

-Which chose that second to swing open.

"If I'm not back in twenty minutes, be sure to turn off the heat and open the oven a little bit. And don't forget to put in the rolls when the timer goes." Jessie was calling over her shoulder as she staggered out the door with a big leather cash-bag; likely the weekly take from her register. I knew she made quite a bit more than my brothers, but a bag of _that_ size? Maybe it was the month's take.

"Which one? This is a _clock shop_, Sis."

She turned completely around to face the person who had spoken, completely missing anything else in the Alley.

"The _one on the_ _oven_, Ian! Do not make me fire my own brother!"

Wait. My mind jammed.

Ian Tickes was home?

Big Ian Tickes, the tallest Seeker in twenty years and the height-record holder for Ravenclaw?

_Oh, shit._

It was, of course, at that second that Jessie crashed into me. The bag went flying, my clockmaker's feet slid right out from under her on the slushy cobbles, I caught her just before my own knees went traitor and deposited us both in the muck –all in all, a slushy mess. We heard a 'thwack' and our heads turned just in time to see Ginny had caught the bank-bag, which was the size of a Bludger, easily.

"Oh, well done!" a masculine voice called out. Ian Tickes himself, my old rival on the pitch and the star of England National, strode out of Jas. W. Tickes and Sons, a leather apron over what looked like a practice jersey. "You must be Ginevra Weasley! I _heard_ you were a superb Keeper!"

"Hi, Charlie," Jessie greeted me quietly, looking at once hopelessly sheepish for falling and a little mischievous.

"Your brother-" I gasped.

"Is _so_ fired." She staggered to her feet and raised her voice to the big man at her door. "You call this sweeping? I have a _wet butt_ now, you great pillock, and now prob'ly I'll have to go change and miss closing time at the bank."

"It started snowing _after_ I swept," Ian protested.

"And did you salt in case it _might_ snow? _No!_ Boy, for a Quidditch player, you sure can't do much with a broom," Jessie grumbled, stretching one of her amazing hands out to me. I reluctantly took it and was on my feet in another second. "Charlie has a wet butt now too, I bet."

"You _think?"_ Ian asked. Ginny started giggling, the heartless minx. "Proof or it's not my fault!"

I had never been diagnosed with heart trouble before that day and I had done a fair job of keeping fit since my school Quidditch days. Nevertheless, I'm fairly sure that in the few moments after realizing that my _much larger_ old rival was home and probably about to discover my romantic involvement with his little sister –and especially in the moments during which said female, with no warning whatsoever, gave me the most passionate and hands-on snog I had heretofore experienced (confirming my wet butt in the process, I may add,) in full view of said _very big_ ex-rival…well, if I didn't have heart failure then, I'm fair sure I never will.

"Oh." Jessie seemed to suddenly realize how startled I was. "Ian knows, by the way." I looked over her shoulder and saw a gobsmacked, but not outraged Tickes in the doorway next to my own equally-gobsmacked sister.

"Come, Ginevra," Ian remarked. "I'm Jessie's brother, Ian. We must gossip about them roundly while they go to Gringotts with wet butts."

"I agree. Such behavior is not to be dignified with a change of pants." With that, Ginny plunked the Bludger-size bag of coins in my arms with an audible noise that may have been my wrists popping. As our siblings shut the shop door, Jessie looked at me with an apologetic look that had more than a little blush.

"Sorry…I just couldn't resist doing that."

"…Don't."

"Huh?"

"Don't resist. Not ever."

That mischievous look came into her eyes again. I'm pretty sure we must have scandalized _somebody_ in Diagon a moment later –but there again, maybe not. I do seem to recall applause from the direction of Fortescue's.

"What've you got to do at Gringott's?" Jessie asked, taking back her Bludger-sized bag with one big hand before I could protest.

"You're _awfully_ strong." She paused for a second, then kissed me yet again. "Buh-why snog?" I gasped.

"Not saying 'for a girl' afterward. I get that an awful lot."

"Oh." I recovered a little more. "I'm cashing a royalty cheque."

"Smashing! Was it a good one?"

"Biggest I'd ever had."

"Wonderful! Well done, you!" And then there was more snogging.

Jessie's shop, incidentally, is directly across from Gringott's. We weren't there yet.

"Um –yeah, I think it's from the publisher's merging up."

"Think you'll be in print overseas?"

"Maybe."

"That'd be nice. My great-uncle Emeric's in publishing. Wrote a popular textbook once, now he's some kind of editor. Lives in New York City, sends me all kinds of materials from America now and then." A horrible thought occurred to me –and apparently, at the same second, to Jessie. "Don't worry. He hasn't the vaguest notion I'm dating you –that cheque's on your own merits."

"You're sure? I mean, if Ian knows…"

"The Redferns told him _today_. After a bit of chat, he was fine with it. He even agreed to dispense with the usual hurt-her-die-painfully brother speech."

"How'd you manage that?"

"Cooking skills. That, and I agreed to go to the bank tonight so he could get to know Ginny. I suspect he may still gamble on inter-House matches."

"What do you have to do? Deposit the monthly take?"

"Oh, no, just the day's, and I felt I'd purchase a property." She went a little pale at my expression. "Oh, Charlie –I didn't mean for it to sound like that."

"Sound like what? That's amazing! You must be doing so well, and I'm proud of you!" She blushed and shivered a little (it was cold, after all, and we did have wet butts,) and I swallowed. "It _is _a bit odd to hear you talk of purchasing property the way I'd talk of buying some oranges for dessert."

"Did you? I like oranges."

"No, I was thinking cake, but…you can see why I looked startled."

"I'm sorry. I should probably have told you I was all right financially –except that I can't think how without sounding like I'm bragging. Ian tells me I've got what's considered a lot lately." She thought for a second as we reached the Gringott's door. "Why don't you just …notice while we're inside and that'll solve matters?"

I was about to agree, but just then a goblin appeared and actually opened the door for her. In the space of a few moments, three more had come, welcoming Madam Tickes, asking if she would like something to drink, providing a little cart on which to set the Bludger-sized coin bag and generally falling over themselves like…well, like men before Phlegm.

"I know I was just here yesterday, but-" The flurry of fuss-making continued unabated and Jessie shot me a pained, sheepish look before "Um, I'd like to speak with someone about buying a property, deposit some cash, the gentleman will be cashing a cheque and I think we'd both like some cocoa if you have it. It's _cold_ outside." As if accepting her tasks as delegated, the goblins scurried off to do her bidding. Griphook himself hurried out and shook Jessie's hand, just before a fourth goblin appeared to take our coats.

"Property, Madam Tickes? This is a lovely occasion!" I had never seen goblins so happy to see anyone –and that included the time Bill had stomped into the Egyptian branch with a diamond the size of my head. "Of course, the gentleman's cheque will be ready immediately-" I felt my eyebrows rise as I took the bit of paper from my pocket- "and we're _always_ happy to take your deposits." _I bet!_ "We'll have some cocoa for you in just a few moments, can I assist you with anything else, Madam?"

This was disturbing. Jessie had the goblins acting like house-elves.

"Well, er- since you mention it," Jessie looked just a little nervous, enough that I could tell she wasn't _entirely_ used to the goblins' eagerness to please, "I don't suppose you know where I could arrange two first-class tickets to Switzerland for tomorrow evening?"

Switzerland?

"I shall attend to the matter myself, Madam. To Bern, I presume? The Guild?"

"You presume correctly, Master Griphook."

"Then may I be the first at the Bank to offer my congratulations!" Again, the manager shook her hand before scampering off, presumably to go see about tickets. Another goblin appeared with cocoa just as a third ushered us into a plush office and two of the largest, softest chairs I had seen since the Gryffindor Common Room, already thoughtfully covered with warm towels.

A fourth goblin appeared and began to chatter with Jessie about property. She named an address and the goblin stated the asking price –which I thought exorbitant, and then, in a manner uncannily similar to the way she had haggled her Grandfather down on the price of the Diagon Alley shop's stock purchase, Jessie and the goblin hammered out an accord.

They both seemed to enjoy it a bit too much.

"Would Madam like to see our brochures on financing?" the little real-estate goblin asked, a split second before the other goblins in the room gasped in horror.

"No, thank you," Jessie said in the polite don't-care way Ginny might decline an offer of extra cheese on pizza. "I'll just pay with cash from my account, if that's all right."

Cash? For a _building?_

"I'll bring some smelling salts for the gentleman," Goblin Number Six announced.

"N-No, thank you," I managed to squeak out. "I'll be okay." Jessie leaned over and whispered to me.

"You okay?"

"You can afford all this?"

"Erm…well…yes, the shabby fact is, I can." She was redder than a beet-root. "It's all my own earnings, though, nothing inherited. No purebloody pole-up-arse airs from me."

"Jess…" I slowly began to smile. "You're…well…"

"Don't call me rich, Charlie. Please."

"Why not? You clearly are."

I noticed, at that moment, that the goblins had all disappeared. It seemed she was _that_ wealthy. Goblin tact; who even knew it existed?

"You saying I'm rich…" she stammered, "especially when your family works so hard, well…it's like something between us. Like a wall, or something. I'm _embarrassed_ I have this much. It's ridiculous that my watch designs and clock repairs bring in so much when there are people who are struggling to get by, and it's even _worse_ that I've just saved it up all these years trying to buy the shop. So I've decided to do more good with what I've got."

"You're buying a _building_, Jess. With cash."

"Yep. I'll take an equity loan on it later in the year so I can buy out my Grandfather, just in case my git of a father decides to try and run away to America with his share of the business." Her brow wrinkled up at that. "Damned coward. And the rent will be plenty, even after I drop it by seventy-five percent."

"Seventy-five…" She wasn't. She couldn't. "Jessie?"

"Yes?"

"What was the address of the building you're planning to buy?"

"Bought, now, given that they've all scampered off."

"What was it?"

"Ninety-three Diagon Alley, why?" I could have kissed her right there. "And please don't tell me not to. The owner was going to foreclose and evict the tenants for the cash to flee rather than take the risk of riding out the war. I'm the Chairperson, what the hell kind of leader would I be if I let my people lose their shops?"

"You're like a Queen."

"No, I'm like a twenty-year-old girl with a great job and a wet butt…and something to ask you, too."

"What is it?" She looked so nervous.

"Go with me to Switzerland?"

"…Okay. Why are we going there?"

"I have to sit my masterpiece and…it's a little scary to go alone. So I ordered two tickets …figured we might get a date out of the whole shebang."

"Jessie…that's not a date, that's a vacation."

"And you deserve one! Published abroad and all!"

"You really mean to buy me a first-class ticket and take me along for a trip through Europe, just because you can?"

"Well, more like 'just because I have to go do some big, scary job stuff there,' but…yeah. I like spending time with you."

"You mentioned that your brother knows we're…together…how will he react to-"

"That's the thing. It was his idea."

"What?"

"Yeah. We talked about it –he says the worst thing about traveling is never having somebody you love with you. And he's right, I…" she trailed off. "Oh, wow. I really just said that."

"Yeah, you did."

"Well, er…" she looked very red and even more nervous now. "Um, I guess that came out a bit awkward there…"

"I think I understand."

"You do?"

"Yeah." I realized even then how flustered we both sounded. I still don't know how I went on. "Seems a bit soon to say, but I'm pretty sure I feel the same way, myself."

"Um…"

"Yeah…"

"Well, so…I suppose it's okay to ask your preference in trains and hotels, now, then?"

"Preference? I've never gone first-class on the Knight Bus, let alone rail travel. You've already outstripped any preference I could have."

"No, I mean…" It really is remarkable how Jessie managed to achieve such a brilliant shade of red. Perhaps being part Irish helped, or perhaps it was what she said next. "Just the one stateroom okay with you?"

I wonder how red I got at that moment. She hasn't said.

"Um…that sounds…"

"I figure, if anyone finds out, we can say it was to save money. They'd believe that from us."

"Would they?"

"Well, of _you_, maybe. Ian keeps making jokes about my collection of handcuffs."

With that extraordinary pronouncement, two things happened. The first was my accidentally snorting hot cocoa through my nose. The second was an unmistakable sound of scandalized gasping from the rough direction of the drapes. So much for goblin tact.

"I knew you got the one pair at Redfern's, but-"

"I've collected mechanical devices I find fascinating since I was a little kid, but especially things to wear. And, well, that collection just happens to include a fairly disreputable, if fair number of handcuffs."

"So you got them for the mechanical aspect. Makes sense. You're very good at mechanical things and all."

"Well, that's how it _started_." Jessie gave me a strange raised eyebrow before leveling an arch look at the drapes. Was she enjoying the shock of our unseen but obvious audience? "At first I was interested in designing watches that could lock on, for professions that might call for it and the like. But as I experimented, I found that there were many things about handcuffs that I enjoyed." I was probably scarlet by now, but Jessie's face had gone mischievous and she gestured toward the drapes with a 'watch this' expression. "The first time I tried some on, I was maybe ten, and I just thought the ergonomics could be better. But as time went by, I found that handcuffing myself to various fixed objects, in various states of dress, could be very enjoyable indeed. And so my collection grew, as did the number of designs in my sketchbook."

"You designed your own?"

"Oh, yes. And not just for wrists, either." I was rapidly becoming uncomfortable as she went on, though this was looking more and more like a prank on the conservative goblin bankers –who were probably horrified. "Perhaps it's my sensitive wrists. The Redferns were only exaggerating a little when they mentioned how strange mine are –probably a side effect of the big hands and all. And why not? I mean, really, when you think about it, the wrists can be as sensitive as the hands, except that they're rarely stimulated at all. We hide them under watches and shirtsleeves and apart from the odd cufflink, nothing really gets close to them. So when you latch on something metal, tight, with a chain or a hinge between that renders you totally powerless, no matter how damn big your hands are or how strong your arms. You're completely at the mercy of whoever locked you in, so, of course, you have to be quite careful who knows you like handcuffs."

I was, at this point, very uncomfortable. Not in a bad way, you understand, but pants, wet or otherwise, being what they are, and a disturbingly minxy side of your girlfriend being what it is, pranking the goblins or otherwise…I think my gentlemen readers will understand.

"It's really best to have someone you completely trust," Jessie explained, looking back from the drapes to me, her voice wavering a little bit, "and, you know, care rather a lot about. Naturally, I've kept the interest pretty quiet, up 'til now. Even the family thinks my collection is for purely academic and theoretical purposes –though I get the odd innuendo now that I'm out of school." It seemed that what she had begun as a mischievous bit of messing-with-heads had gotten a little too realistic, and she backpedaled. "Sink me, where can the goblins be? It must be close to closing time."

"Here are the keys and the deed, Madam Tickes!" Griphook announced, appearing with several other goblins seemingly out of nowhere. I wondered how many had been behind the drapes –to say nothing of what they thought. "We also have the gentleman's cheque ready –will you be depositing all, or taking the sum in cash?"

"Um –er, I'll deposit all but twenty Galleons-" I stammered.

"Very good! I also have the tickets for Madam, will the seven o'clock train suit?"

"Perfectly! You've outdone yourself!"

"I've also taken the liberty of arranging accommodations at one of the finest hotels for Madam and the gentleman. Here is the Floo number, feel free to contact Clawhammer there to specify your requests." Griphook handed Jessie a little card and me a small bag with my cash. "Is there anything else Gringotts can do for you this evening?"

"I don't think so," Jessie signed the deed and handed it back for a seal, then pocketed it –almost in her back pocket, before she remembered. "Are the Floo passwords for the property available?"

"Second page of the deed, the addendum near the bottom," Griphook explained.

"Excellent. I think that will be all today." Jessie shook Griphook's hand and pulled on her coat, before pausing suddenly. "Er…just a question though –was anyone listening to us earlier?"

To my complete shock, it turned out that goblins can, and do, blush.

"I thought so. Gentlemen, it has been a pleasure. I appreciate your unwitting participation in this market research for Weasley's Wizard Wheezes."

"What was that, Madam Tickes?" a very red Griphook inquired.

"Whether goblins can tell a prank is a prank or not," Jessie explained demurely. "Had a decent bet on it, you'll be getting the deposit soon. Have a nice evening!"

And with that, surrounded by gales of goblinish laughter and wearing her archest smirk, Jessie exited the bank. I almost couldn't believe her nerve.

"You deliberately pranked the goblins," I remarked admiringly.

"Looks that way, da'n't it?"

"I can't believe you pranked the goblins. Fred and George didn't think anyone _could_ prank the goblins."

"I know. That's partly why I did it."

"To prove you could?"

"To prove it could only be done by double-blind deceit. You forget, Charlie, I'm a politician now. I can do deceit." In the wide-lapelled coat and her elegant shop attire, she did, indeed, have a mature, almost politic quality. "The only way to prank the goblins is to use the truth as your shocking material. Then, when you reveal that it's a prank, they believe you pranked them, partly because they'd rather not believe witches get up to that sort of thing and partly because they want desperately for the Chair of Diagon and whatever-number-richest shopkeeper to think of them as a friend." I must've looked confused, because she shoved her hands in her pockets and shrugged a bit as we walked. "It was the only way I knew I'd have the nerve to tell you without blushing, if you thought I was saying that kind of thing as a joke. But you should probably know the truth's sometimes the best weapon a prankster has."

_Oh._

"To be fair, you did blush a little bit."

"Wouldn't you?" I took her arm in mine and she reddened just a little around the cheeks. "There are those who consider that sort of thing almost Dark, and even I was pretty confused by it until the Redferns –well, suffice it to say, they lent me a book or two."

"What did you find out?"

"Plenty." She took the deed out of her pocket. "So here's what I'm thinking. The password for your Floo is on here, which means you just need the pass for mine." A bit of scribbling with a Blood-Traitor ballpoint later, I had a scrap of the margin in my pocket. "After tasty roast chicken and heretofore-unacquired dessert, during which younger siblings of party the first and older one of party the second will no doubt make both parties blush with disingenuous frequency, may party the second suggest a private meeting in the quarters of same party to discuss the aforementioned issue?"

"Party the first is amenable," I answered, feeling myself grin at her use of Fudgian.

"Party the second would then propose the meeting come to order at eleven-fifteen post meridian, three seconds past the mark."

"Party the first concurs. Inquiries should, however, be made regarding party the second's acquisition of certain necessary articles deemed popularly prudent for certain activities to which party the first would not be averse, provided party the second is ascertained of the timing being appropriate …will be required?"

"…Party the second is pretty sure she knows what you mean…"

"Party the first would not be averse to making such an acquisition, and in fact offers."

"…Party the second was actually endowed with same by a certain triplicate third party, for reasons still unknown, given that party the second had –_has_ never demonstrated a requirement of aforementioned articles," she was really blushing now, "given that the activity in question will be …an inaugural venture on the part of party the second."

That last surprised me, and it must have showed. Perhaps it shouldn't have, given 'party the first's reaction to what had clearly been an inaugural snog less than three months previous.

"Really?"

"Yep."

"Party the second is ascertained of the timing being appropriate?"

"Is party the first averse?"

I took her hands in mine.

"Party the first is…completely disgusted at the lack of appropriate verbiage to express his decidedly positive feelings at such a proposition."

Our verbiage went pretty completely nonverbal at that point. I knew it was still snowing, and I still knew we were standing in the Alley, but other than that, the world condensed down to just her and me for a few moments.

At least, until the sound of applauding from Florean Fortescue's intervened.

"Oh, dear."

"I think we've arrived, Madam Chairperson," I whispered in her ear. "Now…what _shall_ I get for dessert?"

Her reply, suffice it to say, was decidedly Redfernesque and perhaps best lost to history. No, I think I will list it, you readers have endured enough with the Fudgian.

"'Sides me?"

She really does have a minxy side.


	24. Some Ice Cream

.Chapter Twenty-Four: Some Ice Cream

"Madam Chairwoman!" Florean Fortescue greeted as we walked through the door. "And Charles Weasley, what a wonderful surprise!"

"Surprise?" Jessie asked, slipping her hands out of her greatcoat pockets and stretching them in a way that seemed to pop all four knuckles. "What's going on?"

"Ahem," a sort of sickly-sweet voice interrupted. "As I was saying-"

"But Madam Umbridge! I don't believe you've met Madam Tickes, the new Chairwoman of the Diagon Alley Chamber of Commerce." Mr. Fortescue seemed very interested in keeping the short, unpleasant-looking woman from getting a word in edgewise. "Madam Umbridge and this young lady from the Aurory have been holding a debate on shoppers' security." I was surprised that so many people had managed to cram into the small ice-cream parlor, but there were, indeed, about forty witches and wizards at the various little tables observing the proceedings. Nymphadora Tonks was clearly the audience favorite, if only because of her more impressive attire. She grinned at Jessie, who returned the look. The applause we had heard earlier suddenly made more sense.

Before Madam Umbridge could introduce herself to Jessie, though, Mr. Fortescue continued:

"Rather than keep the audience in the cold once it began to snow, I offered to host the proceedings in here. I don't suppose, given that the authority in question is largely …_yours,_ you might care to moderate?"

Actually, strange as it sounds, this situation was far from uncommon. Florean Fortescue had hosted, according to Fred and George, something like two-thirds of the informal political debates over the past year and a half, which was only a slight increase from his old record. It was probably his hospitable, civic-minded nature, as London's meteorological climate could be almost as dreadful as its' political, though it could also have been the fact that interested spectators were by no means averse to buying ice cream cones if they came by on a cart and didn't interrupt the show.

I well remembered watching debates between Cornelius Fudge and his various opponents when my mother had brought us to get our school supplies –and I also fondly remembered the free cups of hot chocolate Mr. Fortescue had pressed on those children with the brains to take interest. 'Civic cocoa for those too young to vote,' he'd said. 'Best get used to this sort of thing.'

"I'd be delighted," Jessie replied. "Rather than go over it again, if each side would like to summarize their main points up to where you were when I came in, and then we can move forward." She pulled a Galleon from her pocket. "Heads or tails, Auror Tonks?"

"Ahem, if I may introduce myself, Madam-"

"Oh, we've met, Madam Umbridge. If you'd rather call the coin, you may." Jessie looked expectantly at the shorter woman, Galleon balanced on her thumb. Umbridge looked fairly gobsmacked, but managed to sputter out:

"We've met?"

"_Heads… or… tails?_ It's to see who speaks first," Jessie explained, in roughly the same tone my mother uses when she 'explains' the need to do dishes or de-gnome the garden.

"Heads," Umbridge mumbled. Jessie flipped the Galleon onto the table in front of her.

"Heads it is. You were saying?"

All of a sudden, I remembered just who Dolores Umbridge was. Knowing how my brothers had reacted to her as an administrator, I could guess how she had met Jessie. I would have choked with laughter, had Mr. Fortescue not placed a vanilla swirl cone in my hand at that very second.

"I know. This should be quite the debate," he remarked in a whisper, pulling out a chair for me and taking the one beside. I sat down to watch the fun.

"The security of London's witches and wizards is the Ministry's first priority," Umbridge announced unctuously, still looking a bit confusedly at Jessie as if trying to place her. "We are considering several new laws which will protect citizens shopping in Diagon Alley as well as the rest of Great Britain. We wish, for example, to create a registry for all sales of Floo powder-"

"And its' components?" Jessie interjected.

"Ahem?"

"Any sixth-year with N.E.W.T. potions can make Floo powder. If you're going to keep track of everyone buying it ready-made, you're going to have to keep track of everyone buying the ingredients to mix up a batch at home." She pulled off her greatcoat and draped it over the back of a chair, which she then leaned on as if it were a short lectern. "It's like creating a registry of bread purchasers but ignoring everybody who buys flour. What's more, there's a very good reason why Floo powder comes ready-made. If you add just a hair too much of one part or heat it for just a touch too long, there's the risk of…well, suffice it to say, there's rather a lot more danger in making your own than in buying it ready-made. And while I'm sure the criminal elements have their share of decent potions-makers, the fact is that a criminal getting into the Alley isn't nearly as dangerous a proposition as a criminal _trying_ to get into the Alley and blowing up half of it."

"Madam Tickes-"

"Oh, I'm not speaking _against_ the proposed law," Jessie explained. "Just wondered how you plan on enforcing it."

"The Ministry is prepared to make several new policies for prosecuting such criminals. We would-"

"How?"

"Ahem?"

"I asked how would the Ministry prosecute such criminals? Also, what do you mean by such?"

"We intend to impose stiff penalties for criminal activity –such as purchasing Floo powder without providing proper identification for the new registry."

"But purchasing Floo powder isn't a crime right now. You're saying that the Ministry intends to make it a crime to purchase Floo powder without registering, and then to impose a stiff penalty if people don't comply with that new policy?"

"Yes! Exactly!"

"Which brings us back to my first question, how will you be enforcing that?"

"Well, the Ministry-"

"Madam Umbridge, does the Ministry keep statistics?"

"Of course."

"Specifically, sales tax records on such products as Floo powder?"

"Naturally. I don't see what this-"

"If you wouldn't mind looking it up sometime, I believe you'll find that the Ministry collects over fifteen thousand Galleons a year in Floo powder sales tax. That's just a rough estimate, of course, figures I read in the newspaper. Given that British sales tax is one percent, that would indicate that every year, shops sell over fifteen _hundred_ thousand Galleons' worth of Floo powder. Assuming most shops are open six days a week, fifty-two weeks a year…you're looking at something like forty-eight thousand Galleons a _day_, just in Floo powder sales, all across Great Britain and the various Commonwealth tax districts."

"I am _aware_ of the popularity of Floo powder," Umbridge almost growled.

"But you don't seem aware of the logistics that would be involved in creating a registry for such a popular product. Just to reimburse the shopkeepers for the cost of maintaining a registry book, you'd have to raise taxes. To compensate them for the time lost in checking identification, signing a book, doing a Verification spell...that's roughly eight extra minutes minimum on a two-minute transaction."

Jessie raised her hands and counted it out on her long fingers. "_Two_ to _ten_, and that adds up over the course of a day. Shopkeepers won't be able to serve as many customers in the same amount of time, so business is going to go downhill. Plus there's the cost of the registry books themselves, which means either a sales tax increase or a price increase for the product in general. When business goes downhill and prices go uphill, we have a term for that. _Recession_."

"I wasn't suggesting-"

"Then, of course, there's the small matter of the fact that most Floo powder sold in Great Britain is a product of Israel and the passage of a sales tax increase, even to recoup registration costs, would be a violation of international trade agreements. I'm not certain about the Ministry, but I'm fairly sure the average British witch doesn't want to risk _war with the Israeli government_ just on the off chance that a criminal might travel by Floo powder."

She seemed to think of something just then. "Actually, wouldn't you think the vast majority of criminals can probably Apparate? I know I haven't used Floo powder since I was a kid at Hogwarts, except when I had packages in my arms, and I'm pretty sure most of the Floo users are commuters and mothers with small children. So isn't it kind of like encouraging cricket-bat safety when the bad guys are all using swords?"

"That, actually, was my objection," Tonks interjected. It looked like she was trying very hard not to laugh.

"Oh. Well, point to the Aurory. I can't see the utility or feasibility of that law. What other proposals is the Ministry considering?"

Umbridge continued in a very smooth voice, despite looking a bit purple.

"The Ministry is considering a policy of increased security at commercial centers like Diagon Alley, specifically targeting shoplifters, vandals and street brawlers. We intend to-"

"_Shoplifters!"_ Tonks cried, her hair flashing from pink to a violent orange_. "Vandals?_ You-Know-Who is attacking people in the streets and you're worrying about _shoplifters?_ You're fiddling while London burns, you mad harpy!"

"Auror Tonks, you are out of line!" Jessie announced coldly. "You will speak in turn, according to the rules of civilized debate or you will cede the floor to another speaker! I will _not_ have incivility, even in this informal setting which Master Fortescue has so generously provided for the public use." She straightened her vest a bit. "Madam Umbridge, what sort of policy changes did you have in mind regarding petty crime in commercial centers?"

"The Ministry is prepared to increase the number of _trained and certified_ Aurors-" Umbridge eyed Tonks maliciously, "assigned to commercial centers, to increase the fines and possible terms of imprisonment for shoplifting, vandalism and public brawls, and to authorize more serious force against any perpetrators of so-called _petty_ crime."

"Excellent. Your rebuttal, Auror Tonks?"

"I don't think _Aurors_ should be wasted on _shoplifters_. Don't we have more serious concerns as far as Alley security?" There was a murmur of approval from the crowd.

"I agree that there are more serious concerns, and you're very right to object to what appears on the surface to be a frivolous concern, Auror Tonks," Jessie replied diplomatically. "But allow me to clarify the purpose of Madam Umbridge's proposal. About how many people each year would you think try to steal something from my shop?"

"I don't know. Probably one or two a day?"

"Actually, the figure is much lower. More like one or two a _month_, and on those occasions the Sneakoscope usually registers a shade of violet associated with helpless kleptomaniacs. I actually know most of the people who are susceptible by sight. James W. Tickes and Sons hasn't had an actual theft in _years_ –forty-seven years, to be exact." There was another murmur, this one impressed. "My family invested in an excellent security system, I'd be happy to give the name. Comparatively speaking, about how often would you say a Knockturn Alley shop, let's say, Nooke's Books and More, deals with shoplifters?"

"Probably about the same."

"Much more often, actually. I know Mary Nooke, actually, and her family's security system was installed by the same firm Tickes and Sons uses. And yet, Nooke's Books and More gets roughly twenty times the number of shoplifters. It isn't because their products are worth less –a very modest watch costs about the same as one of their mid-shelf books, I'm told. And it isn't because their shop _looks_ less respectable. Apollo Nooke goes to considerable pains to keep his store clean, well lit and nicely appointed. I've often been jealous of his window displays, myself."

That got a murmur of incredulity. Suffice it to say, it was the 'and More' that made Nooke's Books perhaps a little scandalous for a woman of Jessie's age and position to be discussing.

"The reason why Apollo and Mary Nooke deal with more shoplifters –and, indeed, are injured by one or two every year, is because their shop is in Knockturn Alley. The Aurors in Diagon _have time_ to pick up a shoplifter, take him to the precinct and fill out all the paperwork. This task, incidentally, takes about two hours, which is nothing when an Auror is working the Diagon Alley beat. A shoplifter is big news in Diagon." The crowd seemed to agree with this. "In Knockturn Alley, though, an Auror can't waste two hours on a shoplifter. There are illicit poisons, dangerous products and more stolen goods than you'd care to think about. The Auror who gets stuck with the Knockturn beat is up to her arse in alligators, so as you can well imagine, a lot of rats go unpunished. People rob Knockturn Alley stores not because Knockturn Alley stores are easier to rob –but because it is much harder to get caught."

"Is that the poor Aurors' fault?" Tonks objected.

"Heavens, no! Far from it!" Jessie had a look of knowing concern on her face that I found quite becoming –a bit like Professor McGonagall frankly discussing the risks of Animagic with her N.E.W.T. students. "The Aurors in Knockturn are some of the best on the beat. They do more with less than I'd be willing to believe, if I hadn't seen their good work through my own glasses. The problem is that the process works against them. They have to catch at least X many criminals in a given week, and they've got directives of problems X, Y and Z to specifically 'crack down' on. With the average turn-around time on an arrest being two hours, you can bet they're going to make the most of the time they've got and go after the big crimes like X, poison, and Y, dangerous illegals, even if it means letting people go for little things like Z, shoplifting."

She had the crowd completely captivated. Of course, it looked like a goodly many of them were shopkeepers, so it stood to reason. "Now, what Madam Umbridge is proposing, this seemingly unimportant crackdown on petty crime, is actually a revolution in the way Alleys deal with security. By reducing the paperwork and protocol necessary for an arrest, an Auror can catch easily five or six times the number of criminals. Yes, it will be for smaller crimes, but think of the possibilities! How many poisoners do you think probably got their start with a bit of five-finger discounting? How many hardened criminals would probably think nothing of scratching their names in a bathroom wall?

"Think back to when we were kids in school. The professor who only cracks down on the worst offenses has a lot of chattering and little piddly pranks going on. It's hardly order. But the hard-arsed bat who jumps down a kid's throat for so much as note-passing –his classroom's a showplace. What Madam Umbridge is proposing is a change in atmosphere very much along those lines. Criminals who _always_ got away with shoplifting, with vandalism, with a little fight here and there, and who then moved on to bigger and worse things –all of a sudden, they can't get away with so much as nicking a Chocolate Frog. It's night and day.

"And worse yet for our criminals, it isn't a question of 'Down to the station and I'm let go wit' a fine, guv'nor, while you're still on me prints an' fings,'" Jessie did a fair imitation of Mundungus Fletcher's dialect that got a laugh from the crowd. "It's 'you're under arrest' and Tonks claps the cuffs on you, then links you up to the next pincher, then the next, and the next, and she only takes you in when she's got a _full load_ of miscreants, all cuffed up like a daisy chain!" Jessie held her wrists together in mock imitation of a handcuffed criminal and grinned viciously. "If that means Mr. Shoplifter has to _stand and wait_, chained to a lamppost like a common thief while the crowd points and laughs –well, that's just what happens to shoplifters!"

The crowd loved it.

"So once Auror Tonks brings her line of pinchers and vandals into the station, clink! More bad luck for them! Ministry's changed the paperwork so Aurors can run prints in only a few minutes. If you're caught shoplifting and there's a warrant out on you for poisoning –oopsie, you're going to go down for both. You're wanted in Scotland for coining and get caught in a London barfight –looks like the stir for you! The way it is now, if you keep the small rules, you can break the big ones pretty easily. With Madam Umbridge's proposed change in law, breaking the small rules means they not only hit you with the book, they break it over your head. The big rules suddenly go without saying. Who's going to try and move a bit of poison when the Aurors are chaining people up like stray Crups for shoplifting? Who's going to try and beat on a shopkeeper when a simple street brawl means prison time?

"Madam Umbridge has proposed and Auror Tonks is prepared to execute a sea-change in Alley security! The sheer loss of shrinkage will lower prices inside of a month, which means greater tax revenue –_more than enough_ for an Aurors' raise, and with the decrease in insurance costs, the drop in repair bills with vandalism all tidied up…well, it wouldn't surprise me if we saw a greater era of prosperity and expansion than ever before!

Jessie caught up the hands of Tonks, who looked very enthusiastic, and Umbridge, who still looked decidedly off-balance, and raised them together in front of her like a referee with the winning Chaser and Seeker.

"What a great time to have a shop, with these two women fixing things up so's I hardly have to say boo in the Chamber. What a brilliant plan! Aren't we all for it?"

The crowd's reaction was, to put it lightly, uproarious. They applauded, stood and clapped Tonks, Jessie and even Umbridge on the back. Everyone had questions, but instead of asking the debaters, they were asking Jessie, and she fielded them like her brother in a pile of Quidditch reporters –gracefully and with such good cheer you simply couldn't help liking her.

"That wasn't a debate," I observed to Mr. Fortescue. "It's 'watch-Jessie-fix-everything.'"

"Yes, of course," he replied. "Precisely why I brought her in. I don't need that fat little toad scrapping with that poor pink-haired lady; I need order and customers with a little bit of hope to celebrate. Your girlfriend seems to supply a great deal of compromise and inspire rather a lot of hope, so I involve her whenever possible. That's why Abby and I picked her for the Chair."

"That's why –_you?_"

"Oh, yes. Abby Flourish and I picked out Jamesina to take over Diagon when she was nine years old. We had such a scrap with old Myron about it, for years we wore on him, but eventually he saw she would do well enough with the shop and let us go ahead with the nomination. It's funny she flipped a coin just now, that's how we decided which of us would put her name forward. Abby won, of course, she cheats, and I was going to second, but your brothers managed to beat me to the privilege."

"Wait…you knew? You wanted her to be Chairperson?"

"I've wanted a competent Chair for years and Abby and my wife have wanted a woman for just as long. We had actually planned to put her mother forward back in Seventy-eight, but then…" He trailed off and I nodded knowingly. "Well, the kitten's often as good a mouser as its' mum, so I guess our little junta will have the desired effect."

"You've taken over the Alley."

"Yes, and with your girlfriend. I do apologize."

"You might have told her, you know."

"Oh, heavens no!" Florean gave me a sneaky look. "That's the point of the thing. If we let the poor girl _know_ we were grooming her for office, she might've taken it into her head that there was some sort of privilege involved, or that power was something desirable. As it is, she considers it her duty, much the way it's our duty to brush our teeth, clean the catbox or sweep the steps –which is to say, rarely fun and often quite disagreeable. The whole point of picking our favorite was to have someone who really doesn't _want_ the office on her own, but who will do a damned good job in it once it's thrust on her."

"So you want a politician without ambitions?"

"Oxymoronic as it is, that was just what we had in mind. And it seems to be going well. As far as I know, Jamesina has only ever had two ambitions in her life, one of which the grapevine says she is about to fulfill and another of which she fulfilled not too long ago."

"Owning the shop and sitting her masterpiece?"

"Yes." The ice-cream man had a sort of wistful look. "A true Diagon Alley girl. James Tickes couldn't ask for a better daughter –and to be sure, he doesn't deserve most of the credit for what he has."

"I don't understand what goes on between the two of them. I've only seen them together once…it was like they weren't even _friends_, let alone relatives."

"It's one of the saddest stories in the Alley," Florean explained, "but one of the least often told, fortunately." He looked at the crowd in his ice-cream shop, almost all of whom were crowding around Jessie, Tonks and Umbridge still. "Come. If they ask, we're discussing flavors of wedding cake."

I stopped cold and looked at Mr. Fortescue. "For your brother, of course. Have _that_ look on your face and they'll believe what they want."

We headed into a crisply clean kitchen, bigger than I would have thought and full of delicious smells. Mr. Fortescue opened a large freezer and took out a platter with slices of different ice-cream cake, before retrieving two forks. "Come now, Charles, have some alibi. The brown there is caramel."

"Why an alibi?"

"Because I have the strong suspicion that if Jamesina hasn't explained what goes on in her family, she doesn't intend to –and old meddler that I am, I think you probably should know."

"It must be pretty awful, then."

"Yes, one could probably say so." Mr. Fortescue had that wistful look again. "When I first knew Jamie Tickes, he was very much like his daughter. Not so bold, of course, and with a certain preoccupation where business was concerned. Jamesina has proved more talented with the books, so she has more time for a proper life, I'd imagine."

"Is that how come she's done so well for herself?"

"Actually, I have the strong suspicion that her accounting prowess is but a drop in the bucket of young Madam Tickes' financial achievement. The Tickes family has always made products of superior quality, repaired them at reasonable –actually, some say that their low repair prices make their watches a better value than any foreign competitor.

"Moreover, they have the admirable quality of being excellent neighbors, business-wise. It was a loan from Jamesina Tickes the third that helped rebuild my parlor after You-Know-Who came to power last, and it was her forgiveness of interest in hardship that allowed no less than twenty businesses to recover and prosper in the post-war years –my own among them." Mr. Fortescue smiled gently. "Young Jamesina, in addition to being a gifted clocksmith, carries a very beloved name –and with it, the burden of some very serious expectations. In a way, it's almost better that James Tickes…but I'm getting ahead of myself."

I took another bite of 'alibi' and had to interrupt Mr. Fortescue to praise it.

"Actually, it's a bit of 'relevant,' rather than 'alibi' that you just tasted," he explained. "It was at my own parlor that Siobhan McArran came to work summers; being the Muggle-born daughter of a jeweler and a pastry chef, she took quickly to working, independence and the most delicious apple-pie ice cream cake ever served in England. I would call the dish by her name on the menu, if not for the tears it would bring, now that she's no longer with us."

"I heard…You-Know-Who."

"You heard correctly," Mr. Fortescue sighed. "But again, we're biting the cone with the cherry still on. It was a lovely summer day, for one so unseemly hot, and Siobhan had just emerged from the kitchen with her latest invention, that apple-pie ice cream cake I mentioned. She was already overwarm from the day and the complete failure of climate-controlling spells –in those days, we used to take turns standing in the walk-in to cool off when the place got hot. She didn't take her turn, however, just stood at the counter watching one of the little debates I like to host as it got closer to out of hand. It wasn't anything very serious, just Hogwarts students having a pointy with a bit of an audience, but things were heating up quickly.

"Now, as you can well imagine, Charles, I was and still am perfectly capable of winding up a civil matter before it becomes, shall we say, uncivil. As a matter of fact, I was in the very act of whipping up two knickerbocker glories for the combatants in the hopes of providing a distraction. But before I could so much as peel the bananas, Siobhan had gone over in her apron and the little white hat our girls always wore back then, and started to ask some…well, some very bad questions."

"How do you mean?"

"Oh, she sailed in and poked holes in their arguments, cool as you please, and in ways nobody'd considered until she began poking. In the space of three minutes, she reduced a proposed product ban to moral posturing –which it was, a suggestion of decency legislation to an economic misstep on the level of –well, Jamesina's skewering of Madam Umbridge on Floo powder had most of the same pins and needles in –and then, of course, she proceeded to turn on the liberal opposition and make Jamie Tickes look like a blowhard opportunist."

"So she argued with Jessie's dad?"

"Oh, she _skewered_ him! She rooked them both! She made Gertie Macnair look like the worst prude since Victoria and then she made Jamie look like a mindless little boy who just wanted to argue with anything! I haven't seen a debate come crashing down like that…well…until today, actually."

Mr. Fortescue sighed sadly. You'd think I'd be used to the way people speak of friends they lost, what with the Order and all, but even after all these years, it's hard for me to watch.

"Miss Macnair was, naturally, furious, and when her cousin Marius had the nerve to applaud Siobhan, well, there was a good deal of sniffing and 'I never!' and the sort of nonsense you'd expect from the Slytherins. The Gryffindor boys there, all five of them, cheered for Siobhan, who was, after all, one of their own, Muggle-born or no." _Gryffindor_? "And Jamie Tickes' Ravenclaw Business Lads actually started applauding too, after just a brief moment to process that their President had just been bested by a scoop-wielding girl in a paper hat.

"For a moment, I worried that Jamie was about to act a young arse and not congratulate Siobhan for proving his motive wrong. But he just stood there for a few moments, looking right at her as she was thumped on the back by her Gryffindors and had her hand shaken by some startled, but gentleman Ravenclaws. It was like a starving man seeing his first triple banana split on the hottest day of summer.

"'Miss McArran,' Jamie finally spoke up, catching her hand in his, 'I have never enjoyed being wrong so much.'

"I was sure that Siobhan was about to make some sort of arched-eyebrow crack –after all, she was remarkably good at it and tended to be a bit…well, defensive, the way some Muggle-borns get after a few years of school. But she just stood there and looked at Jamie, then at her hand in his, and gave him this soft smile.

"'Your argument was after bein' the only thing I found wrong,' she said, in that soft Irish voice of hers. 'I'd be willin' to give y' another look.'

"'After work sometime?' Jamie asked, a little too quickly, given that his mates were all around him. That Macnair and her friends let out little gasps of shock that a Tickes would ask out a hired assistant, a Muggle-born and Irish, to boot –you see, the sort of people who think pure blood counts for toffee often tend to look the other way regarding certain wealthy business scions' Muggle-born grandmothers. If the family coffers are deep enough, they consider your name close enough to the 'toujours pur' standard –maybe not enough to date, say, a Malfoy, but a Parkinson or a Goyle wouldn't say no to Jamie Tickes. I was pretty sure at least one of the Slytherin girls had her cap set for a wealthy watchmaker –if not for a mate, than at least for an alimony cheque. There was also rather more prejudice against the Irish in those days, and particularly against Irish Muggle-borns. With the Troubles, rather a lot of children came to Hogwarts that might have gone elsewhere, and there was some feeling among the old-name families that the 'little micks' were snapping up scholarships -all very whispery, of course, lest someone realize the old-names had run out of old money. Moreover, to that sort of narrow-mind, owning one's shop implies respectability, whereas working for someone else means servility. They treated Siobhie like a house-elf whenever they thought my back was turned. And here Jamie had asked her out!

"I am, of course, a stubborn old meddler, so I had no moral qualm whatsoever of going over and calmly informing Siobhan that she had forgotten to take her past three nights off since her promotion to management, and would she mind skipping overtime this evening, as things were so slow? It was just the ghost of a lie –I had wanted to promote Siobhan and was waiting for the moment of maximum impact…and she had, actually, failed to take a night off in weeks. She always claimed she had to work late when a gentleman in whom she lacked interest asked her out –which was partly why, I think, she did so very well at work. She gave me a look of abject terror and a bit of pique before turning back to Jamie with a bit of a shrug and asking if he wanted to go see the Kestrels play Ballycastle.

"Oh, yes. Ian the fifth gets his Quidditch talent from his mother. After her parents' divorce, Siobhan's tuition got a bit pinched by their solicitors' bills, but she earned herself a fine Seeker scholarship and was thinking of training up as a referee if she didn't make it into Auror training. Jamie Tickes had a fear of heights until she got ahold of him…but then he actually got up the leather to propose on a broom in front of the big Hogwarts clock, so I suppose it was all for the best."

"Did they marry young?"

"Well, in those days, we didn't think them so very young. They were engaged nearly four years altogether, and I believe it was the week after Siobhie's twenty-third birthday that they finally tied the knot –after the year-and-a-day, of course."

"Year and a day?"

"Siobhan's parents had been through a nasty split, so of course she had a few issues regarding whether it was such a brilliant idea to marry at all, even a young man she so dearly loved. But there's an old Irish custom, still practiced by some wizards, which lets a couple marry first for a year and a day, after which either party can end it, or else they can make the thing permanent. Then, of course, there are three years during which either party can, under Brehon law, break it off." Mr. Fortescue smiled. "It was on the last day of the three years that their boy Ian was born. I think it was almost another six before Jamesina…there was some sort of trouble, I think, else they'd likely have had many more children. And then, of course, when Jamesina was two, the troubles began again and Siobhan was killed with her mother-in-law at the Diagon Alley shop."

"Why?"

"Who on the earth can say? Either way, Jamie went raving mad."

"I can imagine he'd be upset."

"Upset? No, this was flat-out, sleeves and straps, lock-you-in-the-bughouse mad. There's a streak of madness in just about any old family –mine involves chocolate. The Tickes have a bad time handling grief, to the point that it was only by the grace of Jamesina the fourth, who had been born a Switch, holding everyone together when Myron's elder brother James was killed."

"Whatever happened to Jessie's grandmother? I hear so much about her great-grandmother; almost nothing about her Gran."

"She didn't suffer a sudden death. It was a slow cancer, mercifully free of pain and with plenty of time for everyone to finish grieving and celebrate her life while she had the tail end of it. It was hard on Jamie, of course, but Gardner was much younger and handled it fairly well –likely a blessing from the Switch side. Anyway, Jamie was mad, so mad they had to put him in hospital for a year or two to keep him from hurting himself or others."

"Does Jessie know?"

"By the time he was anything close to himself again –and the man you've met is not the Jamie Tickes any of us recall, he made them swear not to tell Ian or Jamesina. Between school, being a toddler and good excuses, Myron and Gardner managed to keep it from the children. I daresay Ian may have figured it out by now, but then, he had his own pain to deal with and I'd be surprised if he forgave his father. Jamesina never did."

"What do you mean? Jessie'd never-"

"Jamesina grew up with a collection of stories for a mother and a man who could scarcely look at her for a father. She seems to have assumed it was somehow her fault he disconnected so utterly, and when he finally did come back a little –only after one of Siobhan's students essentially dragged him back to life, Jamesina saw it as her chance to know the father from stories. Instead, he remarried and had twin boys less than six months later. He isn't much closer to them, but they still have a mum when Jamesina doesn't. I think it was hardest on poor Sarah."

"Sarah?"

"Oh, yes. Sarah Whipkey Tickes. It stands to reason Jamesina wouldn't mention her stepmother. Sarah studied under Siobhan and Jamesina the elder; seeming to be a shop apprentice when in fact she was learning from two of the greatest female Aurors in the history of Great Britain. She's significantly younger than James, and though most of her motivation for bringing him back seems to have been the sense that her friend would have been very put out with how her children grew up…well…Jamesina had stories. She didn't need any stepmother; she probably just wanted her father back. So the more Sarah tries, the less James' older children keep in touch, and it's only for the pleading of Gardner, the bullying of Myron and the family rules of meeting for business that the Tickes children see their father at all these days.

"Like I said, one of Diagon's saddest stories."

"But…" I couldn't think what to say. "How could she not realize why her father is how he is? How could she just cut off her stepmother?"

"Oh, she hasn't cut her off entirely. Jamesina considers Sarah a fine colleague where Mediwizardry and, to a lesser extent, Potions are concerned. They do write, and while Jamesina rarely mentions anything non-work besides 'oh, got elected,' or 'bought a new owl,' my wife tells me that Sarah cherishes each letter and talks incessantly of them, impersonal as they are. And I think she's slowly coming to the realization that James is not and probably never will be the man she heard stories of all her life."

"She's preparing to buy him out so he doesn't move the shop to America."

"Well, yes. She also has the confounded stubbornness of both her mother and great-grandmother. In fact, I think that stubbornness would have saved them both, had they not been so mortally outnumbered. I'd be willing to trust my nephew to very few shopkeepers in Diagon if something were to happen to my wife and I, but Jamesina Tickes heads the list. She isn't a bad person by any means…it's just that she and her family have some bad blood that needs to be worked out, and it's quite likely I'm the only way you'd ever get the story from an unbiased source."

"Unbiased?"

"Well, apart from thinking Jamie a right pillock for going off the deep end like that, Myron an old fool for not doing more to stop him and Jamesina perhaps a bit better at understanding the works of a clock than a person…yes, I suppose I'm fairly unbiased."

"My family's so different from hers."

"Aye. And she was friends with your brothers first. Probably quite a bit of time she's spent with her hands on the window, wondering what it'd feel like to be part of a clan like that. You'll have to help her learn that such families have a lot more trust in them than the one she's known –but from the tales of her cooking for six people, I'd say she has the affection down."

"But why tell me?" I asked.

"Because," Mr. Fortescue's wistful look had a bit of hopefulness in it. "You look at her the way Siobhan looked at James. Now that you've seen what's wrong, any chance you'd give her another look?"

I took a last bite of apple-pie ice cream relevance.

"I think it's time I got her on a broom by the Hogwarts clock, actually."

"You know it'll be an uphill fight? A long engagement, if she agrees at all, probably a year-and-a-day as well?"

"After my brother's wedding, I think we could all use a rest anyway." Mr. Fortescue was smiling now.

"I've been matchmaking the young people of Diagon for nearly ninety years," he remarked. "If I can just see Siobhan's little girl happy, I think I can consider retirement."

"Well, after ninety years, I'd hope you can give a fellow some good advice!"

"Oh, I had plenty of good advice thirty years ago. Ask your Da if he remembers it!"

We were laughing when a very tired, very hungry-looking Jessie walked in.

"Remind me again, _why'd_ I accept that nomination?" She stretched a little and Mr. Fortescue handed her a plate of apple-pie ice cream cake. "Oh, right. You promised me _treats_ as the Chairperson!" She nibbled happily and I exchanged a significant glance with Mr. Fortescue. She probably didn't even know her mother'd invented it. "This recipe is so good…oh, and I got Tonks and Umbridge to agree, so I've fully deserved this cake."

"That y' have," Mr. Fortescue observed, patting her shoulder from behind as he pulled out a chair for her. "That y'have."

A/N: In response to reader inquiries, the pronunciation of Jessie's mother's name is 'SHAW-van Mac-AIR-an' and the nickname Fortescue uses is said 'SHAW-vie.' The Troubles, of course, refer to the civil unrest in Ireland during the twentieth century (try Google,) and Brehon law was the legal system in Ireland for several centuries, particularly the fifth century CE, though it is, to put it mildly, no longer used. It can be inferred, however, that some Irish witches and wizards still have the tendency to consider Brehon precedents valid, just as British wizards cling to concepts from West Saxon common law. Brehon law emphasized reparation and rehabilitation over punishment, employed the concept of an 'honor price' payable for insulting or harming a person (the price was commeasurate with the injured party's rank,) forbore capital punishment except in particularly extreme circumstances, and considered women coequal with men in almost every way. Only inheritance had different rules for females and males, the rule being that women could inherit, but that they must then pass on the property within the original family, i.e. to a nephew rather than a son. The rules regarding temporary marriage for a year and a day, as well as the no-fault, at-will, alimony-free dissolvability of marriages within the first three years are as described in the narrative.

What this background information implies re: certain characters, I will leave to the readers' interpretation. .


	25. Some Diaries

Chapter Twenty-Five: Some Diaries

"Madam Tickes?" a high, somewhat simpering voice inquired. The door marked 'Employees Only' had swung open to admit a short, round and generally unpleasant form.

"Oh! Ma'am Ummridff!" Jessie turned, her mouth still full of apple-pie ice-cream cake. "Gef'fork, there's pie."

I got the distinct impression that nobody, but nobody, had ever blithely greeted that Umbridge woman with a mouthful of cake and then invited her to have pie as if skewering the toady shrew's political plans were no more a personal stab than asking for seconds of broccoli.

"Pie?" Umbridge repeated, as if Jessie had suggested they scurry outside and play hopscotch. "Don't you think that's a little-"

"It's okay. Whipped cream on the side," Jessie replied, as if that explained everything, and took another bite. "Aur' Tonkff!" She gestured with a fork. "Pie!"

"Pie!" Tonks' eyes lit up and she cheerfully pulled up another chair. In a moment of rare consideration –or was it just habit from eating with my Mum at Grimmauld Place? Tonks grabbed a second chair and gestured for Umbridge to join them. "Is that apple?"

"Apple-pie ice-cream cake," Florean explained with a grand gesture, eying me as I started washing up plates and generally pretending I worked there so as not to be noticed. "Specialty of the house, as promised to our Madam Chairperson."

"And you get some too," Jessie explained. "That was a great debate. We just need to work on keeping you civil, Auror Tonks, and Madam Umbridge, you might want to stuff some fluff in among the gems. People aren't going to believe a politician has _that_ many good ideas without a clinker, now, are they? Throw in some rubbish ones here and there. Keeps us looking mortal and fallible, eh? Can't let 'em know how bright we really are, or we'll _never_ have time for pie."

"I was –that is, I thought…" Umbridge stopped for a moment and suddenly seemed to notice her surroundings. "…Pie, you said?"

What followed can only be explained as backstairs diplomacy. Jessie acted as if she, Umbridge and Tonks were the closest of colleagues and that the near-catfight that had just occurred in Fortescue's main parlor was a theatrical and tactical triumph guaranteed to keep the populace impressed that democracy worked, but without arousing anyone's suspicions as to how brilliant the three women really were and 'ruin it.' "After all, the minute someone knows you can do something," Jessie frowned, "that's when they expect you to _do_ it, on-call twenty-four-seven. Better to keep the bushel of modesty over the genius light, I always say, or we won't get a moment's shade."

Tonks gave me a meaningful look and I recognized that she was only managing not to laugh by means of copious whipped cream. Umbridge, however, lapped it up like one of the hideous kittens Ron had described as making up her office décor.

"It would, indeed, be nice to have less needy constituents," she agreed. "But then, the shopkeepers of Diagon are hardly to compare with the orderly ruling of all Britain."

"Damn glad I haven't got your job," Jessie agreed. "Shopkeepers are an independent, 'fix-it-our-own-selves' lot. Makes sense, too, otherwise where'd all the shops come from? All I have to do's steer 'em a little bit and they come up with the best ideas. And they're so proud of themselves, then, all I have to do is let them keep thinking they thought of 'em. If you can tolerate the lack of credit –something I suspect you know all too well about, and keep up with their endless traditions and ceremonies for every threepenny holiday, Diagon's really the dog's bollocks."

"Well, I for one am just pleased that Diagon's under adept control," Tonks remarked.

"Adept? Meh. Anyone with a sense of the correct and a few friends higher-up in the Ministry can manage in Diagon." Jessie shrugged. "I'm a little young for it, I suppose –however d'you deal with that, everyone thinking you're too young?" She looked at Umbridge expectantly.

It was then that I knew she was victorious.

"Oh, call me Dolores, dear!"

I spent about fifteen more minutes watching Umbridge simper and pontificate toward Jessie. Tonks excused herself after ten, citing a meeting she had to hurry off to –though I'm fairly certain she was just suffering from sinus trouble due to suppressed laughter. And Jessie extricated herself neatly by recalling she had dinner to get on the table for her brother and some guests, the Weasley brothers, had Umbridge met them? The toad blanched and Jessie offered to introduce them, at which point and with much apology, the bureaucrat buggered off. As soon as she was gone, Jessie gave Mr. Fortescue a big grin and accepted a white box full of apple-pie ice cream cake for the evening's dessert. They also exchanged what looked like a private joke at Umbridge's expense –it left them both holding their sides and Jessie was still smirking as we headed back toward her shop.

"I can't believe you did that," I remarked just a short while later.

"Did what? Ate all the pie? I only had the one slice, really. Didn't want to wreck the appetite for chicken later."

"You know what I mean!"

"Oh, back there?" Jessie shrugged as if she hadn't managed to subversively capture the esteem of one of the worst women in the history of the Ministry. "Simple, really. The Redferns and I used to read this wonderful comic book about a Muggle chap with a boss like her. I just did what his little pet dog did, with a couple modifications to, y'know, not being Muggles, or a dog, and the target's being a chick was a help in it…"

"Could you let me read said comic? I think I'd like to be Minister someday, be nice to get at the manual!" Perhaps that came off as sarcastic. I hadn't meant it to, but it was a little frightening to see Jessie so apparently chummy with someone so…well, evil as that Umbridge cow.

"Oh, honestly, Charlie, it's no worse than what I did earlier with the goblin prank. I know it's duplicitous and deceitful and probably means I'm a bad person, but it gets the job done better than anything else I know how to do. And I haven't done it that much before."

"I'm not angry. I just…worry."

"That I'll do it to you someday?" Her eyes looked hurt.

"Oh, no, Jess…"

"'Cause I won't. If you want to give me Veritaserum every night before bed and interrogate me for every trick and trap of the past day, or week, or year…it's not in me to lie to you."

"I wouldn't believe it was."

"I would. Lying and deceiving…I'm getting over my startle at how easy it was to do and beginning to feel…would it shock you if I said it was fun, doing what I just did to that…that…"

I took Jessie's hands in mine –they were shaking, and I suddenly felt the moisture of blood where her nails had cut into her callused palms. Horrified, I turned her hands over and looked to see where she'd hurt herself.

White and livid against the back of her left hand was the faint line: 'I will not tamper with property not my own.'

"Jessie, what-"

"I was mending the Hogwarts clock. It had a worn wormgear and the spring needed to be re-tuned. Trouble is, the teachers' alarm clocks are spelled to it, and Umbridge found herself late to a few meetings when the others …forgot to warn her to cast a Chronometrancy charm. It took me three days to make a new wormgear –and while I was putting it in, she caught me. Made me do lines."

"Jess!" I had heard, from Fred and George, what that cow had done to kids. But I'd never heard…

"It's okay. I stopped her watch today."

"…There's kind of a gap between scars for life and a stopped watch, don't you think?"

She grinned, a little wickedly.

"Not the way I do it."

"Jamesina, dear, even I can find the spare china in that closet in less time than you've taken!" the voice of Ian the England Nationals' Seeker called. "If you wanted to snog, you could've volunteered to get me some more lemons!"

"Are we out already?" She opened the door and looked over her brother's attempt at punch. "There were two left. Isn't that enough?"

"Taste it." She obliged with a sip from a spoon. "Doesn't that call for more lemon?"

"Needs oranges."

"Have we got-?" Jessie tossed one over to Ian and began peeling a second herself. "Oh. Thanks!"

"And we did find the spare china," I volunteered, setting a stack of plates on the table's end.

"Ow!" Jessie almost dropped the orange she was peeling. I realized the juice probably stung her hand where she'd gashed herself and took it from her, slipping the last of its' skin off with my own thumb. "Stupid orange," she remarked, kissing my cheek as I split it into sections and added them to the punchbowl. "I'll get the potatoes ready."

"Wow. You still manage to match your hair when a girl does that," Ian smirked.

"Oh, as if you don't blush with your dozens of fans about!" Jessie retorted. "Bloody dozens of screaming girls, all with copies of '_Witch_ _Weekly's_ Dishiest On The Pitch issue for your scribbly signature?"

"Some of them even flash their bosoms," Ian announced. "There's all manner of things fans ask a bloke to sign. Enough so that I've taken to keeping a collection of Muggle felt-tip pens. They shriek when the quills tickle."

"How _do_ your teammates avoid genital spattergroit?" Jessie asked.

"Haven't asked. I'm surprised St. Mungo's hasn't borrowed our Chaser for medical research, though. If you can wear out a broom, I'm sure you can wear out a-"

"Ian Gardner Tickes," a voice suddenly exclaimed. It was Fred.

"Seeker for England National," George gasped.

"And maker of tasty sangria punch!" Jessie announced, pointing to the punchbowl. "We only had to help with the oranges."

"You must be the proprietors of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, then. Can't tell you how I appreciate your fireworks; we have 'em at team parties. And I've used your fake wands on no less than six rival teams for a lark. Even had a few sent to me."

Sometimes I worry when my brothers grin like that. It always looks as if the tops of their heads are going to slide off.

"And there's roast chicken!" Jessie drew a truly spectacular bird out of the oven and hoisted it, straining just a little, onto the kitchen counter and pulled out the internal thermometer. "Potatoes, too, but I still have to pull 'em out."

"Are you sure that isn't a turkey, Jess?" Ian asked for the umpteenth time."

"Quite. The tag said chicken, so it is clearly a-" Jessie licked the thermometer. "Well, soot. Turkey it is."

I gave her a peck on the cheek as my little brothers laughed. Even Ginny was giggling behind her hand, though, to be fair, I wouldn't have put it past her to confuse poultries, raised on a farm or not. Ian, however, had a kind of half-wistful smile, the sort Mum gets when she's pleased with one of us kids for doing something that reminds her of one of our late uncles.

"Mum did that once," he whispered, when I gave him a look. Jessie was busy explaining to the twins in unnecessary detail the precise similarities between turkeys and chickens –sounded pretty funny, actually, but luckily she missed her brother's quiet comment.

"Jessie never got to-?" I asked.

"No," Ian sighed. "There's a painful resemblance, though."

I'd figured there must be. I had only seen Mr. James Tickes a couple of times in my life, but I knew what Ian's uncle and grandfather looked like, if only from meeting them in the Hospital Wing the time Ian and I crashed into each other and were both…let us say, we'd met. Jessie's hair was the color of her father and uncle's, but apart from her nose, hands, wardrobe and a vague trace around the eyes, particularly in squinting, she didn't favor the Tickes side too heavily. Ian's hair was almost black, but his face was the very stamp of his uncle and grandfather, except for the chin and a smile that looked just like Jessie's. His nose also had a once-broken look. "Want to see?" he asked, drawing me into the middle workshop and opening what could only be described as a significant pocketwatch.

There were two portraits inside. The one on the right was a color shot of James and Siobhan Tickes on what might've been their wedding day. Jessie's father had been clean-shaven and grinning, and for the first time, I saw the resemblance between them. His part of the picture didn't move, but his young wife's did, if only a little.

Jessie's mother had been what people call black Irish, with very dark hair and the pale skin her children shared. She also had Ian's once-broken nose and the mischievous smile of both –and her wedding dress was the first one I'd ever seen worn with Quidditch gloves.

"She's beautiful…and you have her nose."

"Yep!" Ian grinned with a pride that warped wistful at the last. "Started the same and then we broke 'em the exact same way on the pitch; Bludger full in the front. I wouldn't _let_ Madam Pomfrey fix mine when I saw how much it looked like Mum's."

"I always wondered why you went about with cotton and tape on it for a week."

"Now you know. Father could scarce stand to look at me before, but once I did this, well…he at least had a good excuse."

"Were they married on the pitch?"

"Well, Granddad tells me they planned to be married at Hogwarts, in the gardens, but at the last moment there was quarantine because the venomous tentacula was seeding or something. Father was horrified and wondered how they could ever find another place when Mum showed up in her gloves. He kissed her right in front of the Headmaster and said it was brilliant, they'd just do it on the pitch. Mum was too startled to say anything, so she just kissed him back and Headmaster Dippet wound up blushing through the whole ceremony –which was just under the south-left goalpost. No one from her family even came, but Mum insisted she'd have preferred Great-Granny anyway –they were ever so close, even before Mum started dating Dad. Great-Gran Jetty was Mum's superior officer when she entered the Aurory. And remember Madam Hooch, how she didn't referee games that I played in?"

"I do! We got stuck with either Snape or Sinistra."

"She stood up with Mum and didn't want there to be bias. Dad's groomsmen were Frank Longbottom and Uncle Gard."

The other picture was an old-fashioned one in sepia that depicted…well, she looked a damned lot like Jessie. The nose and slightly-squinting eyes were identical, and while I couldn't discern the coloring from the picture, I got the impression it wouldn't take too much for the two women to be mixed up. They even looked to be about the same age. Apart from the clothing and old-picture color, I would have said that it _was_ Jessie –except I'd never seen Jessie salute or look so very…dangerous.

"Who's that?"

"Great-Gran Jetty, when she first got her commission. Jessie's named for her." That would, indeed, make the photograph pretty old. "Uniform was different back then, wasn't it?"

Far from the informal attire Aurors wore now most of the time, Jamesina Switch Tickes had looked pretty militaristic in an old-fashioned way. Back when the first lady Auror had been a young officer, the Aurors' formal dress robes of today had been the working ones. Even at the modest rank of corporal, Jamesina the elder could have easily out-dressed Tonks, who was, I believe, now technically a lieutenant.

"She looks awfully young."

"I think she was between Jess and I in age. Maybe that's why she gave me this picture for my first watch, really…though she said something about retired officers' relatives and how it was best not to boast of rank –what she thought anyone would think of my Great-Granny only being a corporal in a photograph, I don't know. In some ways Gran Jetty was worse than the old-boys' club she'd broken up."

"Jetty was a nickname for Jamesina?"

"Back then, apparently. Her middle initial was also T, until she married Great-Granddad. She once dueled someone for calling her by whatever it stood for in front of some cadets."

"What _was_ it?"

"Nobody really knows anymore. As you can imagine…" Ian gestured to the picture, which now had its' arms crossed and a 'you were saying-?' look, "nobody had the nerve to ask."

"She sounds exciting."

"I was never quite scared of her, but then again, I was never quite _not_, either. It's a bit odd, I guess, to know the lady who makes you cookies and tells you about your Grand-dad when he was a little boy was also the lady who came out of retirement to duel Bellatrix Lestrange…by all accounts, for the fun of it."

I stared at Ian and he glanced at the picture again. "She did a splendid job. They say that it was the Lestrange brothers who came for her and Mum –old Trixy McPsycho was too banged up."

"Old _what?!"_

"That's what Gran Jetty called her. She and Mum would sit around making watches and discussing things no child should hear about, but with the nicknames they gave all the Death Eaters –and most of the Aurory, I kind of assumed they were talking about comic books. Mum drew in her journals and sometimes read me the latest adventures as if they were Batman stories –that was a Muggle one she used to read to me. By the time I was eight or so, though, I figured out who was who. The names they had for You-Know-Who…"

"So they were like Martin Miggs?"

"Eh, some of them. Mum kept a journal of almost everything. The stories of the 'Fox Banchomarba and her Tanaiste' were as exciting as anyone could want, but the ones about their real-life alter egos were much funnier. I was even in some of them, and so was baby Jessie."

"They sound wonderful."

"Oh, they were. I just wish Jessie could read them, too."

"They were destroyed?"

"Oh, no. I have them in my trunk upstairs. Want to see?" I nodded and Ian ran up the stairs like a kid about to show off some perhaps-less-significant comic books.

There were, indeed, about fifteen little leather notebooks in a wooden box that I recognized.

"You made that box at school, in Transfiguration class."

"Yep. I felt they deserved better than cardboard. Look at this –the first adventure!"

I opened the little book and was amazed by the drawings within. They depicted a heroine who looked just like Jamesina Switch Tickes in her twenties, drawn in black and white. Then the drawings became color and an older Great-Gran Jetty was training a girl in an ice-cream cap to duel. It was an autobiography, drawn like a superhero comic, as if for the express purpose of appealing to little kids –or of being palmed off as a children's comic.

The difficulty was that I couldn't read a word of the captions or speech bubbles. There was a line that read 'thug me liomh e bhaile go baile,' next to a drawing of Siobhan McArran (likely not Tickes yet, given the ice-cream shop uniform,) riding a bicycle down Diagon Alley with musical notes skipping around her head –and it didn't make even a lick of sense.

"Mum wrote them in Irish," Ian explained. "You know, Gaelic. Probably for security reasons, that, and she spoke it to me constantly as a kid. I know most of the stories by heart, at least in translation, but I can't remember much of the language…so few people speak it now. I tried out for Ireland's Quidditch team primarily in the hopes of learning more, but with the English surname and only a .438 blocking average…well, I tried. I'm going to see if I can't travel there in the off-season, soon as the mess with You-Know-Who's cleared up…maybe find a trustworthy translator."

Ian frowned and flipped a few pages forward to a drawing of what looked like Siobhan with her nose freshly broken, in a Quidditch uniform, hexing another student in what was clearly the locker room.

"I don't trust a wizard, see, because you can tell exactly who a lot of the people are." I looked at the hexed student and realized it bore a striking resemblance to Amycus Carrow's wanted posters. "A Muggle, though, I could say it was a series my mother wrote to entertain me as a child, a fantasy, with wizards and a magical school and such."

"Good idea," I replied.

"And then I figure I can just use an Obscurus charm. He'll wake up with the idea to write just such a silly thing, and then the Muggles will get a nice children's book."

"But don't you think that'd make a few people look closer? You know, at things we really hope Muggles don't notice?"

"Oh, a few of the dafter ones might, maybe." Ian shrugged. "But if they were taking their cues from a children's book, wouldn't it be a tremendous risk of being laughed at to mention it? And Muggle-born kids would have a way of explaining things to their folks."

"I always wondered how Muggle-born kids do, describing Hogwarts over the Christmas hols."

"The comics show Mum trying to, in volume two," Ian said, opening the second leather-bound book. "I suppose those are my grandparents," he explained, pointing to a somewhat overly-cartoonish couple, who were arguing in nothing but capitals and italics.

"Has Jessie seen these?" I couldn't bear knowing another secret that she didn't.

"Of course! I've done my best to tell her every story I could remember translations for, ever since she was big enough to hold still and not tear pages." Ian showed me a picture in the middle of the last book, depicting a little boy of about six holding his baby sister and a children's book. "That's me trying to read to Jessie. She used to squirm something fierce."

"What are you guys up to? The bird's finished…oh! Mum's comic books!" Jessie cried, leaping down to the open trunk. "Aren't they amazing! This one has the Fox Banchomarba and her Tanaiste versus the Crupkicker." She took a book from the middle and proceeded to tell me a story I already knew to match the illustrations –how a Death Eater I recognized as Walden Macnair was arrested by two female Aurors and subsequently claimed to be under Imperius. "They're my favorite stories in the whole world. Mum should have published them."

"I think they're great," I agreed. "She was an amazing artist, look how she caught the resemblance to-" Ian was behind his sister, making throat-cut gestures and shaking his head. "I mean, they look just like real people."

"Yeah," Jessie sighed wistfully. "I bet they would've made everyone feel better, if she'd published them…you know, the way reading about Robin Hood makes people feel better in a depression. Superheroes are cool like that...someone you wish were real."

Ian shot me an apologetic look and I stared in confusion as Jessie hurried us down to dinner.

"Father forbade me to tell her the truth about them," Ian explained. "She thinks our mother wrote fairy-stories to give people hope, that the Aurors never overstep their warrants and that a reasonable government can hold off evil if its' leaders are strong enough."

"But…when her own mother…"

"Father didn't want us to end up like her," Ian almost growled. "But I'll be damned if I end up a puling coward like him. I'm not here because of the off season." He glanced out to the table, where Ginny was setting out silverware and Jessie was setting a bowl of broccoli onto a trivet. The twins had lifted the turkey together and were bringing it out –it was that large and spectacular. "I'm here to protect and serve the Chairperson of Diagon and serve as her tanaiste if she needs me to."

"What does that word mean?"

"Heir-apparent. There's a connotation of 'elected,' too, and of 'second,' in the sense of old dueling protocols."

"So the Fox Banchomarba means...?"

"Great-Gran was called 'the Fox' by her contemporaries. A banchomarba is a female heir, especially a female war-leader. Very archaic, even for Irish terms."

"So your mother was her heir-apparent?"

"Exactly. Mum had been training with Great-Gran at the Diagon Alley shop for ages before Father first asked her out. I believe Great-Gran's reaction was somewhat along the lines of praising the saints that the boy had some sense after all, followed by what must've been a spectacularly smutty crack, given how the drawing of Mum blushes in the next panel. Father lived primarily in Hogsmeade then, and was just a little afraid of his grandmother –as any sensible fellow would be, and it was a bit of a shock to find out the girl in whom he was interested was best mates with his Gran."

"This sounds like a good story," Ginny remarked.

"It is!" Ian agreed. "As exciting as how you met Mr. Potter, though, I don't know. Basilisks and such in yours, my parents' one only has Death Eaters."

"Well, I never _did_ remember the basilisk." I was surprised. Ginny never talked about that incident, unless you really pressed her, and then it was usually followed by storming out or calling one a prat. "And I was only eleven, so it's hardly as romantic."

"I expect Mum and Father's was a bit on the side of farce. Great-Gran Jetty was, by all accounts, rather an earthy soul, and according to Mum's diaries, the first time she was ever bested in a mock duel was when Mum got sick of her inquiries as to whether or not Father took after his great-grandfather."

"In what way?" Jessie asked, before going patently scarlet. "Oh."

"I can't imagine being best mates with a girlfriend's grandfather," Fred observed. "I've never known an old person who didn't act like people our age were ickle firsties or hopelessly degenerate."

"By all accounts, Great-Gran was precisely the same person at ninety that she was at twenty-one," Ian explained. "Used to scandalize her own grandson, though Uncle Gard just seems to take after her, and even Granddad says she had been neglected in visits from the Tact Fairy."

"Could you see Aunt Muriel asking after one's love life?" George asked.

"Actually, she did, last time I saw her," I cringed at the memory. "'Charles Weasley, how do you ever expect to meet a nice girl in Romania, among those great lizards? Why don't you move back to Britain? And don't tell me you'll find someone in Ottery St. Catchpole!'"

"The old hometown is a little small," Fred conceded.

"Well, yes. Thank goodness nice girls nowadays make house calls for clock repair."

"They do?" Jessie asked, about a split second before she realized what I meant, blushed, looked about nervously, and smiled. "Well, to your house, maybe. Just lately it hasn't been safe for most tradesmen to offer house visits." George grinned and started to say something:

"Remember when you had to hex-"

"Yes, and it's always been a bit dangerous to go alone," Jessie replied, in a tone that cut short what was almost assuredly a sparkling anecdote –well, it _could_ have, with anyone save my twin brothers.

"If you're a pretty girl," Fred snorted. "Rotten little Malfoy git."

"Hey! I handled that capably!"

"You hexed him in the buttock."

"Yes! Like I said, capably!"

"However did I miss this incident?" Ian grinned broadly and thumped Jessie on the back proudly. "Well done, you! What sort of hex was it?"

"I think Verdimilious."

"Fair choice for a short-range. Make the target awfully nauseous. For a contact hex, I've had splendid luck with Tarantellegra."

"Wouldn't've worked in that situation. The little git tried to pounce on her," George explained.

"Pounce?" Ian looked puzzled. "You mean attack? That's a daft way to duel."

"Wasn't dueling," Jessie explained briefly, focusing intently on her serving of broccoli. Ian suddenly dropped his fork and stood up indignantly.

"THAT LITTLE-"

"I told you, I handled it capably!"

"Capably isn't a Verdimilious to the…oh, my." Ian sat down, looking a little awed. "I suppose it would be, now that I think of it." Fred and George gave Jessie a look of new respect and Ginny succumbed to the snorting giggles. "Well. I guess he learnt his lesson."

Suffice it to say that the Verdimilious curse, apart from inducing extreme nausea, could have some very fascinating side effects, given relative proximity to certain other regions and certain states of, shall we say, being. Every male at the table, including me, had a look of nervous awe, whereas Ginny seemed to be gleefully setting aside the knowledge for future use. Jessie looked mortified.

"How's the turkey?" she suddenly asked, and my brothers and hers couldn't praise it enough for a change of topic.

It was about half an hour and well into Ginny's splendid description of the latest Gryffindor match that we were all startled by a resounding crash from the front of the shop. Jessie was up from the table and halfway to the front door almost as fast as Ian, with us Weasleys right behind. (The Tickes were sitting closer.) She grabbed the Beater bat from under her worktable as she passed through the main room and kicked open her own door with some violence.

Outside, a figure in black with a polished metal mask was standing over a dazed, smallish man in an apron, next to a dented streetlight…apparently the Death Eater had thrown the shopkeeper into it.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" Jessie shouted, winding up with the bat and connecting just as the silver mask turned toward her.

It crashed in like tinfoil, blood pouring from the nostrils and below. Before the figure could point its' wand, Jessie had brought the bat down again, this time across the top of the skull.

Other doors had faces peering through glass panes, but at the sight of the still formally-dressed Madam Chairwoman striding out with a bat in her shirtsleeves, a lot of those doors opened. Ian strode forward and yanked the wand from the Death Eater's hand before planting a trainer on his chest and pinning him to the ground.

"Not in my town, you inbred sack of dragon shit!" Jessie growled, pulling the mask from the ruined face with a squishing noise. "Tie him up. And get me a damned Auror!"

Ian was just applying a more-than-adequate Binding Spell when shopkeepers and other Diagon Alley folks began to head into the street in earnest. Jessie had never looked fiercer nor, as I could tell Ian was noting from the grim smile on his face, more like her mother. Someone tentatively began to applaud and Jessie turned on him.

"Mr. Blotts! Help Mr. Weasley with Mr. Nooke!" I started to help up the dazed little shopkeeper and was joined in seconds by another. "Apollo, are you alright?" Jessie called in a somewhat softer voice, still scanning the sky for more Death Eaters.

"My head…"

"Charlie?" I replied that it looked like a concussion and we'd best get him to St. Mungo's. Jessie nodded shortly and gestured at Ginny. "Floo him from my shop, Gin, and don't come back here unless it's with more Aurors."

Ginny would normally have protested such a high-handed 'get out of the danger' ploy, but she isn't stupid. Fred and George picked up Apollo Nooke and had him through the door of Jas. W. Tickes and Sons just before we heard the shrill cry from the sky above.

A blur of blackish smoke rushed down from the cloudy sky to the cobbled street and suddenly became a human form. It let out a cry and I realized, not only was that horrible noise laughter, but the form was a female one.

"Poor ickle shopkeep, got into an ickle fight?" Bellatrix Lestrange taunted in a maddening baby voice as the smoke she had traveled in blew away. For a split second, though, as she saw the tied-up, unconscious Death Eater with a Quidditch star and the Chairwoman of Diagon standing over him, the harpy actually looked startled.

"You'd better have a damn good explanation for this, Lestrange!" Jessie roared, actually striding toward the other witch with the bat raised.

A lot of the other shops' doors that had slammed shut at the sound of Lestrange laughter opened again, just a little crack.

"You-!" Bellatrix looked genuinely surprised now.

"YES, ME, YOU DAFT COW!" Jessie really could be loud when she wanted to. "What the _hell_ do you think you're doing, with this whoreson brawling in my street like a common thug?"

"Jetty Tickes." Bellatrix hissed. "But you look so… _young_." Her eyes widened further and then narrowed. "Can't be."

"It's Madam Tickes to the likes of you!" Jessie was, by this time, less than a bat's swing from the female Death Eater. "I don't give half a shit for your politics, but when you and your little thugs start fighting in my Alley, beating my guildsmen and acting like damned children, it's bloody well my problem! What the _hell_ was this idiot thinking?"

The most fearsome woman in Britain was silent for a second. There was another rush of smoke and a blond woman stepped forward out of it.

"You're not Jetty. You're Siobhan's girl," Bellatrix observed.

"Oh, well fucking spotted! What goes _on_ at your parties that you get liquored up, start fights and then feel the need to play genealogy! There's a three-hundred Galleon fine for a public brawl, and you'd damn well better apologize, or I'll double it with every minute that passes before you do!"

It seemed to dawn on Bellatrix, just as it did on me, that Jessie wasn't saying word one about Death Eaters or You-Know-Who. It was as if an army had arrived and been given a parking ticket. "_Well?_ Or do I have to throw you out and ban you and your whole costume club from the Alley for thirty days?"

The blond woman spoke up, getting a tight grasp on the dark-haired one's arm.

"I'm sorry, Madam Tickes. Rabastan had a little too much to drink."

"Thank you, Madam Malfoy. I trust you and your sister will be by to pick him up after his sentence has been served?"

"Sentence?" Bellatrix gasped.

"Twenty-four hours in lockup and a three-hundred-Galleon fine for public brawling, fifty more for the drunkenness." Jessie growled, toying with the Beater bat the way a bobby might with his billy club, holding it upside-down and tapping the foot end with her free hand. "And that's only Diagon Alley law. The Aurors might also want a bit of a word with him."

"Does the ickle shopgirl know who she's tangling with?" Bellatrix pulled away from Narcissa and began to circle Jessie menacingly. My clockmaker stood perfectly still even as the Death Eater raised her wand. "Little girl who looks so much like her dead mummy."

Jessie tipped the bat upward behind her and pounded the foot, sending the business end hard into Lestrange's gut. A curse blasted harmlessly into the air and Bellatrix let go of the wand. Jessie spun on her heel and brought her fist up hard, connecting so solidly with the woman's jaw that I heard a crack.

Bellatrix wasn't knocked out, but she was dazed, and it was only her sister's cry of _"Stop!"_ that prevented more violence.

I wasn't sure who she was talking to.

"Get her out of here, Madam Malfoy, _before I do,"_ Jessie hissed, shaking her hand and gesturing with the bat. "Come back when you can fight like a Mudblood, you inbred snake whore."

Narcissa Disapparated, taking the woman with her, and another plume of whooshing smoke removed the bound Rabastan. Ian smiled gently in relief, Jessie grimaced, and Aurors came swooping out of the sky in a pack of four. All of the shop doors opened and people hurried into the streets, chattering and cheering and generally behaving like frightened hens the moment the hawk is gone. They were all looking at Jessie as if she were a hero or mad or both.

And then she let out a laugh, a horrible, shrieking laugh.

It sounded a little bit like that of Bellatrix. The shopkeepers and even an Auror blanched.

"Some Diagon girl I am!" Jessie laughed, tears coming out of her eyes. "I have to sit my Master's in two days, and I broke my hand!"

The Alley burst into wild cheers. "And you lot! Tonks, where the hell were you? Am I in some kind of a storybook? You show up the minute the bad guys are gone? What the hell?"

"We were handling a disturbance in-"

"Look, if we don't have enough Aurors, we need more! I want a detail on the Alley at all times, damn it, and if it's a question of manpower…" She was back in political mode, broken hand or not, and the crowd grew larger every second.

I glanced at Ian, and I noticed his smile was a little vague.

"The Fox Banchomarba?" I asked.

"I guess!" His vague smile became a grin and he clapped me hard on the back. "Hope you have better luck than our Father did!"

"Will she still be able to sit her masterpiece?"

"Oh, yeah, they'll probably patch her hand right up. It'll just hurt. I don't think she even used a wand."

"Didn't look like it."

"Knowing her, it's still in her vest pocket." Jessie fixed the dented streetlight herself just then. "It was."

"Am I insane, or did my girlfriend just duel with Death Eaters and win?"

"Nope," Ian replied. "My little sister just got into a street brawl with Death Eaters and fought them to a draw. They'll probably try to kill her before the year is out." He looked worried, but none too surprised.

"Are you sure?"

"Huh?"

"Well, she didn't say a word for or against You-Know-Who. For all they know, she's neutral in the whole matter."

"Good point."

"…She isn't, though, right?"

"I don't know. Kind of depends on how much she takes after our lily-livered excuse for a father."

"She didn't seem neutral when she got elected."

We watched as Jessie's speech reached its' climax, a thrilling exhortation to meet danger head-on, to throw politics aside, to fight terror no matter whether or not one agreed with it, and to take no side but the side of a strong, well-defended peace. Whereas the speech at her election had gotten passionate applause from the Potterists, claps from the status quo crowd and polite eye-rolls from the purebloods, this one was unanimously impressive. Maybe it was the bloody bat, or the fact that her hand was obviously broken, or perhaps something in the cocoa Mr. Fortescue was passing around again.

"Hmm. That could really go either way."

"And from this night forward, Knockturn Alley shall no longer be the pariah corner of slinking crime! If we are to have peace and profit, we must embrace our brothers and bring light into every shadow, friendship through every door, and healthy, capitalistic competition to drive out the unregulated and illicit elements! Take up your wands! We're adopting the place tonight! _Lumos!"_

"Merlin's socks, is she…?"

"She is."

Jessie and the four original Aurors, plus several more who had just arrived, were leading the crowd on what looked like a wandlight parade.

"She's turning a Death Eater attack into a multi-street block party."

"She's going to light Knockturn up like a Christmas tree."

"Well, Borgin and Burke's is screwed," Ginny remarked from behind Ian and I. "What? Competition would put half the sleazy dirtbags in Knockturn under, everyone knows it. Dung Fletcher is also in big trouble."

"That, and Apollo Nooke's shop is in Knockturn. Jessie probably wants to make sure he and his are safe," George observed.

"And Sam –and the Redfern girls," Ian agreed.

Music started playing –the England National fight song. "Not _that_ again!" We stared at Ian. "What? I hear it every single day."

"Is there anything _else_ Knockturn and Diagon can agree to like, musically?" Ginny replied.

"Soot. I suppose I'd better go support Madam Chairwoman with my bosom-signing skills."

"And something tells me Jess will want a few of our fireworks," Fred agreed.

It was one of the most impressive evenings of that entire year. Around nine in the morning, I helped Jessie into bed, her hand still tingling from a bone-setting spell, and turned to go…only to discover that someone had shut the door on us. It was also locked. I turned back and looked at her quizzically.

"Jess?"

"Uh…" She looked a bit nervous. "I seem to have missed the previously agreed-upon engagement of parties the first and second."

"You were saving Diagon Alley from Death Eaters."

"So? I'm a clocksmith, I should at the very least be punctual."

"Aren't you exhausted?"

"Well, yes, and my hand feels like…well, it feels like it should, given what I stupidly did to it."

"How about a nap, and then we'll discuss the engagement of parties the first and second?"

"And by 'discuss' you mean?" Her eyebrow raised archly. I shrugged.

"Well…this evening we're going to Switzerland, aren't we?"

"Yep. I should pack."

"You should sleep."

"Sleep with you?" Jessie asked, a little bit nervously, a little bit hopefully.

"In a sense. Bed fits two." I took off my jumper and shoes and sat on the bed beside her as she unlaced her black Oxfords. "Need some help with those?"

"Yeah. Stupid hand." I unlaced her shoe and she flipped it off with the other foot.

"Not quite what I had in mind, you undressing me," Jessie smirked ruefully. "Are we always going to be held up like this, waiting for the other shoe to drop with the Death Eaters, the damned war, your books and my Alley and all this mess?"

"I don't think so," I replied, pulling off her other shoe. "Sooner or later…" I dropped the Oxford onto the rug below. We both looked at it for a moment.

"I'll get your socks," she remarked, "if you'll undo these braces in back." I agreed, and before long we were in a much better state to nap. Jessie's vest had joined my trousers and our socks reposed together in a tangled pile of Gryffindor house stripe and Ravenclaw Argyle. My white shirt was somewhere near her black trousers, and one of her Oxfords appeared to have snuggled up to my left trainer.

"Now _that's_ a laundry pile."

"Yeah," she agreed sleepily, working buttons with her left hand. "Needs more shirt." The ice-blue garment was pulled off and thrown in a graceful arc just before its' owner's head hit pillow. "Mmm…maybe nap is a good idea…"

"Over here, you." She looked quizzically at me and sat up, as if realizing just how much she was not wearing. Of course, she still had five watches on each wrist and one around her neck. "Do you sleep in these?"

"Well…uh…" I put an arm around her and she leaned into my shoulder as we lay down. "When I forget, I do."

"I'll take 'em off after our nap, okay?" Jessie looked directly at me, a question in her eyes, and I kissed her very gently. "Got to sleep sometime, dear."

She snuggled in close and was asleep before I had finished pulling the covers over her bare shoulder. It was nice how well she fit against me, and her heartbeat seemed in synch with the ten –or was it eleven watches? I fell asleep listening to the sound.

And I suppose that's all I need to put down for this chapter. This whole account's supposed to be historical, and I don't recall anything like this in Binns' classes.

There again, with the goblin wars, I suspect that's a good thing.

-C. Weasley


	26. Some Coffee

Chapter Twenty-Six: Some Coffee

For the record, I was not lounging about in a leather brassiere, all surrounded by weapons when Mad-Eye Moody arrived with the order for me to sign, regardless of the stories which have been going around about that period in time. For some perplexing reason, any female politician with any competence whatsoever is presumed to be either a Victorian whose only interest in males extends to her husband and perhaps a dishy member of her Opposition, a nun, or a wanton Amazon who goes through men the way the Redfern girls go through butter-beer. Due to the apparent masculinity of my attire, an unfortunate tendency to leave my collars unbuttoned, and another questionable habit I was to develop just a short while later, history has a tendency to mark me down as the proverbial Amazon. Ian has also expressed his belief that my frequent use of a Beater bat lent credence to such a portrayal, which makes me wonder how Joan of Arc possibly pulled anything off, ever. Perhaps the bluntness of the weapon is to blame, or the fact that I have an unseemly genetic tendency to curse the air blue as I'm using it. I'm pretty certain my language has a little to do with it.

Of course, I'm really not much of an Amazon. Far too sensible, far too distracted and far too short. I also don't own a leather brassiere. The Redferns have offered to find me one for a Halloween costume for several years, but there's either too cold a weather forecast to make it practical or they can't find my size in the catalogue. I do have a rather nice collection of flannel pajamas, though.

Like I said, the reputation's pretty undeserved. Sorry to disappoint anyone.

It was about eleven-forty-five when the doorbell rang. I bolted awake, as I normally do at that sound, only to hear a familiar voice below. Ian, who was far better used to all-nights and early-mornings, had stayed up, whereas I had gone for a bit of a nap –two and three-quarter hours, in fact, with Charlie sleeping peacefully at my side.

Actually, we had spent the nap pleasantly snuggled up together, and there had been some vague discussion of…well, of not going downstairs directly after we did wake up, a prospect to which I was still partly fearing and partly looking forward.

And then that thrice-damned doorbell rang, waking me up and summoning me back to work. I swore creatively and Charlie stirred.

Best not to wake him up, I thought, and I pulled the covers over his bare shoulder after extricating myself –all too unwillingly, and went to get dressed.

I pulled on my trousers, as usual, and in a moment of mental abstraction, no doubt caused by the dilution of brainpower as I continued to curse creatively in my mind at having to get out of a nice warm bed, filled with a nice warm…anyway, I was rather put out at the situation –I assume I simply grabbed Charlie's shirt instead of my own and pulled it on. I raced down the stairs barefoot, and perhaps I was not as diligent in my buttoning as I could have been, though, to be fair, that's a tendency I have largely mitigated with a tendency to sleep in a camisole or at the very least a brassiere.

What? When one lives above a shop and is more or less constantly on call, there are shortcuts. Many of them go a long way toward preventing embarrassment, and some are even quite comfortable. Full-length pajamas, for instance, allow one a great deal of coverage, and in a pinch can be Transfigured into proper garments in two seconds.

Of course, this explained where all mine kept going, and why work-shirts with penguins and kittens on them kept turning up in the wash as the spells wore down.

Ian was already showing the grizzled old Auror in when I hit the bottom landing and skidded to a stop in my socks. Oh, soot. I don't know who I'd been expecting that I appeared in such a state of dishevelment, but Mad-Eye Moody was not a person before whom I would normally look scruffy.

"Madam Tickes."

"Auror Moody." We nodded to each other and shook hands as elected officials and commissioned officers did, though the effect was a little marred by my attire or lack thereof. I was suddenly very conscious of my braces dangling in back where I hadn't pulled them up, and I'm fairly sure nobody in the room save Ian had ever seen my hair in the state it was. "Won't you sit down?"

"That I will," he replied, finally taking his eyes off my –well, _Charlie's_ shirt, and sliding a legal document over for me to look over and sign. "I've got the order for an increase in beat, just what you've asked for. They'll mostly be young cadets and beat-up old fellas, but that's what the Aurory's got to give."

I shudder, of course, to imagine what Mad-Eye Moody considers 'beat-up old fellas,' but I was not about to alienate such a valuable ally.

"Of course. I'm sure any cadet under your training will be more than adequate, and they say an Auror only loses his touch with his life."

"You know who said that?" Mad-Eye grinned.

"I do, indeed." I grinned back, hoping to the deities that I looked like my Great-Granny at that moment. It was probably the only thing that'd impress him enough to offset my appearance.

"Jetty Switch Tickes was an officer and a lady and a damn good fighter. I can remember being a raw recruit, five days 'til seventeen, and seeing her handle a scrap at the Embassy. Irish fella, thought he would plant a bomb for the IRA. She caught it up with her bare hand and clapped it into a post-box, then Transfigured it to boiler iron. Made a hell of a bang, but nobody got hurt. And then she grabbed the fella and gave him what-for. It wasn't until old Blackie came by and pointed out the poor bastard was a Muggle that she turned him loose –but it was alright, she'd not used a wand once on him. Just those hands and the words she knew. I knew merchant marines couldn't best her at cursing…in either sense of the word."

"I can only aspire to be like her."

"Oh, you're well on your way. That bit with the Beater's bat? Classic Jetty. She'd be proud of you, especially the line about learning to fight like a Mudblood. She stuck up for a pal of mine whose wife was Muggleborn. They'd denied him promotion, so she brevetted him on the field and then told the Chief of the Aurory to go bite a budgie's bum." Not much of a swear, I thought. "That was _to his fac_e, of course, in front of the Wizengamot."

Well!

"Wouldn't she have been court-martialed?"

"Oh, she was. On the spot. They found her guilty of insulting a superior officer and fined her five Knuts." I got the impression that was a pretty low fine for the offense. "And then they found the Chief guilty of incompetence, cowardice and treason. There were some other things he had bollocksed up, but offending your Great-Grandmother was likely the worst of it."

"Sounds like I have a long way to go," I observed, picking up the coffeepot and three cups. "Coffee?"

"Please!" I poured Moody a cup, then another for Ian and one for myself. Ian took his and went back to the front of the shop. The old Auror took a long sip, despite the heat of it and complete lack of cream or sugar. "Delicious."

"I never would have expected you to accept a cup of anything without testing it first, Professor Moody. What happened to constant vigilance?"

Grinning, Moody finished the coffee and turned the cup on its' side. I saw the same three little stripes at the edge that had always been there.

"These are Potion-Detecting cups. I have a set, myself." He really did look pleased with himself. "Also sent a set to your parents for their wedding. These, I think, though Jetty had them, too. Pity they don't make them in the stoneware anymore…china always feels so flimsy."

"I agree. Always feels like I'll crush it in my hand."

"Oh, avoid that! China shards hurt!" Moody showed me a dramatic scar on his palm. We laughed for a moment, and I realized how very strange it was, to be speaking with someone who had known my mother and Great-Granny, as if I were a grown-up, too. "And you have hands that could do it, dear!"

"A fact of which I am all too well aware," I replied. "May I ask a question, sir?" I signed the last of the papers and Moody gave me a serious, but not unfriendly look.

"Ask away."

"What would you suggest I do, given the mess with the Death Eaters?"

Moody sighed, shook his head and smiled.

"Not much else you can do, save to keep on with the good work, never show fear, constant vigilance," he winked, which made his magical eye look twice as huge, "and don't ever think for a moment that you're alone. You're not." That was a scary thought, and I shuddered as I glanced at my own, hopefully-secure four walls. But that wasn't what Moody meant. "Take your brother, for instance. Good, strapping lad, loyal as a Crup, and smarter than most'd give him credit for. And the Weasley twins –not a serious bone 'twixt the two of 'em, but they're good wizards and good young men. The little Weasley girl is rather young, but I've heard good things about her courage, and those Redfern triplets are some of the most competent young people I've seen in a generation. And the second-oldest Weasley boy…" he trailed off for a second, thoughtfully. "I take it there's a bit more than friendship there?"

'How would he know?' I thought, before realizing we had been seen occasionally walking together, that I had kissed him in public twice, and that all of Diagon likely knew.

"I…I have some very strong feelings about him, but there's nothing too serious," I confessed.

"Meaning you're scared witless of a relationship, in no way sure of the future, and essentially, as stubborn and daft as your mother," Moody said evenly, pouring himself a second cup. I gasped, a little offended. "Oh, don't get huffy with me, Jamesina, you should know how your mother tried to hold your father off marrying. Changing the subject, going on missions with mad old Jetty, generally being a daft old bachelor about the whole thing, wouldn't let Jim Tickes get a word in edgewise. He finally had to…well, it took a lot, and even after that, she wouldn't agree to anything more than a trial run. A year and a day, some preposterous Irish notion, and even then, she was on a broomstick and about to leave him at the altar when Jetty and I finally dragged her down. I crippled her broom and Jetty took her aside for a long ladies' talking-to, and when Siobhan came out, she'd had a bit of a cry, but apparently old Jetty wore her down in some way or another. Forbade me to speak of it, but considering how much time has passed and how likely you are to make the same bloody mistake, I figure you should be aware of where that can lead."

I was speechless. Moody poured me some more coffee and I drank it, grateful for a distraction.

"But she did marry him in the end, once the Troubles calmed down?"

"At all but wandpoint! And they were devastatingly happy afterward. There must have been some objection, something Jetty finally had to tell her didn't make a damn bit of difference. I did overhear that much. And then your brother came along, and eventually you."

"So what was the big mistake?"

Moody leveled a very serious gaze at me.

"Do you know what the Cruciatus Curse can do to a woman?"

"No."

"All those missions, all those curses…it's a miracle you and your brother exist at all. Now, you might not have that difficulty –you're not an Auror, though you _will_ be cursed, repeatedly and painfully, before this war is over, and I'll call a spade a spade, Weasleys have more children than Tickeses."

I must have been a particularly fascinating shade of scarlet, because old Moody laughed. "Now I'm not saying elope this very evening, but if you have a chance to be happy, for Merlin's sake, Jamesina, take it. Hold it like a broom in a hurricane, and don't let the damned war or anyone else tell you what to do. You're the Chair of Diagon, and you carry a greater responsibility than the past four of them. You're twenty years old and there are people who literally depend on you to keep their courage up and their shops open. Aside from Potter himself and that pillock Scrimgeour, I can list on one hand the people with a weight on their shoulders like you have." Moody glanced at his finger-short hand and smiled ruefully. "Well, on one of _your_ hands. But that's no excuse to go without joy, or to make up silly excuses like protection. If you care for someone, the other side will know, regardless of what you do. Charles was a target the day he was born. We all are."

Old Moody sighed, and I got the impression he was saying something difficult. "I don't expect to see the end of this war myself. But some of us will, and it is far better to be a war widow with two months of memories than a shabby old bachelor." He drew a chain from around his neck and toyed with the two little gold circles that hung on it. "Take it from me, dearie. Seek your happiness, and if you find that Snitch, never let it go."

He abruptly got up and checked the door, taking the signed paperwork and glancing around my back garden before thumping me soundly on the shoulder. "There. I told Jetty I'd tell you what she told me if she wasn't around today. Constant vigilance, Jamesina!"

The door banged as he left, and Ian appeared from the front of the shop.

"…Did…did that just happen?"

"I think it did," I gasped. "Did you know he was married once?"

"I can scarcely imagine it," Ian ran a hand through his almost-black hair. "but it does make sense. Were those rings he had on the chain?"

"How much could you see in there?"

"I used the reflection on the floor-standing grandfather." As children, Ian and I had often gaily spied around corners by observing reflections in clock crystals. I smiled, glad to know someone else had heard the old Auror's blunt advice. "Maybe he's right?"

"Maybe."

"Does that affect your plans for this evening's rail journey?" Ian asked. I resisted the temptation to threaten him with a leather punch.

"Not really…though it's very strange to be old enough to be given advice like that."

"Grownups always give kids advice."

"Not on this subject!" I cried, even as Ian let out a snort. "At least, I certainly hope not."

"In other news, it's very obvious you're dating him."

"Well, to you!"

"Actually, I'm not surprised Moody knew. Mrs, Weasley monogrammed that shirt on the inside of the collar, and you have it outwards-in." I was beginning to fear the risk of permanent blushing when Ian continued. "I presume your training in the precautionary arts was appropriately employed?"

I set down the coffeepot with such violence that the lid rattled.

"There has, up until this very moment, been no action deemed necessary for the employment of said precautionary arts!"

"There hasn't?" Ian looked puzzled. "But…"

"Some daft pillock let the doorbell ring, perhaps not realizing I would get up to answer it, but nonetheless, doorbell."

"Oh, damn. How do I turn it off?"

"You don't; it's far too much trouble to turn back on."

"Understandable. But that doesn't explain your attire."

"Does the fact that I've had two and three-quarter hours of sleep total explain that some?"

"But you did sleep with him."

"Geographically, yes, there was a 'with' involved. In a local, proximity-related sense."

"Oh." Ian looked a little surprised and I glared a bit over my red cheeks. "I take it there were intentions to engage in more interesting activity?"

"After a nap, yes. But the doorbell rang." Ian sighed.

"…Jess…I'm capable of answering the door, explaining that Madam Tickes is unavailable at the moment, and taking down messages. I came here to work for you, make your life a bit easier!"

"I know. It'll just take me a while to get used to," I conceded. "But do you see Mad-Eye Moody being content with a call-you-back? For all I know, he'd point that eye right up and check on just exactly what you meant by unavailable."

"You have a point. I'm sorry, Sis."

"Well, there's always more time in a clock shop." It's something I say a lot. Ian nodded and topped off his coffee cup.

"You look disappointed."

"Ehh…I kind of am. I mean, when you want to do something, and then you're too tired to do it, and then, just when you might wake up and do it, something else needs done…it's annoying. Especially something you haven't gotten to try before."

Ian looked very startled at that, and took a sip of coffee.

"Meaning what I think you mean?"

"And?" I asked pointedly.

"You're twenty years old. What else has been going on?"

"I tell you what. You agree not to ask that question, and I'll give you the pay rise I can easily afford due to my prosperous past quarters. That's what's been going on."

"But…after all this time."

"I've been seeing him for a couple of months, Ian. And none too frequently. Our longest date so far consisted of my falling asleep against his shoulder on the Tube after a movie. He decided I needed the sleep, pulled his coat over me and stayed on the train. We got home six hours later, having been thrown out by a Muggle policeman who thought we were homeless. Charlie managed to convince him we were lost American college students, which got us directions home and a lecture on the Battle of Britain."

"How fascinating," Ian replied, in a tone that implied just the opposite, though it was not unkind. "I take it that for the past few weeks, the, shall we say, alternative skills found in the clandestine collections of literature were therefore exercised?"

"_Ian!_ No!" If blushing could stick, it would have. "And how did you _know_ about those?"

"I was in Ravenclaw too, sister dear. There are dual archives maintained for that purpose. I daresay the collection contributed to and enjoyed by males is far better developed in terms of sheer number and variety of illustrations, whereas the female side is said to be one of the most exhaustive bodies of literature involving pirates, knights, sheiks and, curiously enough, dragon tamers this side of France."

"You are a horrible person."

"Yes. But one with a tremendous body of theoretical knowledge. I recall one book, carelessly left out by a female prefect, which described in exhaustive detail the adventures of what must have been the most singularly incompetent pirate since that Muggle fellow with the crocodile and the pixy infestation. The one in the book still had both hands, and yet he never captured a ship without being busy for the next seven chapters with the plucky female stowaway."

"I myself am constantly puzzled that ships of the line got anything whatsoever done, the vast majority of sailcloth having been appropriated for bosom concealment by the plague of plucky female stowaways. And impressment makes no sense, why not just give the stowaways jobs? From the book, you'd think there were at least six per boat."

"So you _have_ read them?"

"I was fourteen once."

"Did you read the one about the dragon tamer? One of our Beaters found it in his girlfriend's bag once and was almost killed laughing about it during practice."

"No, I thought the pirate ones were so damned silly…"

"The dragon tamer one was supposed to be one of the filthiest. I'm surprised you don't know it." (I did. It was. But I would never admit that, especially not to Ian –though I suppose we are somewhat more open about some things than many other siblings of our ages and genders.) "Don't feel bad, Jess. You'll get there pretty soon…and you haven't been missing too much. You're only three years older than I was, and you're a girl. Serious difference."

"I just worry that the constant distractions…well…I mean…"

"The distractions are the only thing stopping him. Unless he's an idiot." Ian topped off my coffee and plunked in a sugar cube, which made it taste much better. He does know me awfully well. "I even agreed to dispense with the 'hurt-her, die-painfully' brother speech. And I had such a good one, too. It had cheese graters."

"I'm sure an occasion will arise where you can make use of it. Perhaps our little brothers will take up with evil older temptresses and you'll have to teach me the rudiments."

"They're not even talking in sentences yet."

"For now. Didn't I grow up? Family tendency."

"Point," Ian conceded. "By the way, I made sticky buns for breakfast, and I've already eaten the burnt one."

"Only one? You're improving, then!"

"Well, yes. I probably would have starved in my flat had I not learned _something_ about cooking."

"So, what can you make now?" I asked, grinning. Ian smiled back and counted.

"Sticky buns, sticky buns with ice cream, sticky buns with honey, scrambled eggs, and scrambled eggs with sticky buns on the side."

"What about dinner?"

"Oh, girls never come over for _dinner_."

"They're sure there for breakfast, though?"

"No…it's more a question of after going to a fancy place with more candlelight than food, I'm ravenous the next day. I don't actually have much in the way of guests for an overnight. The ones that want to are usually only interested in me for the jersey I wear, and the ones I want to, I hardly ever have the nerve to ask, for fear they'll assume I'm used to getting whatever I want in that area of human activity –the jersey again, and won't understand that when I say coffee and sticky buns, I _mean_ coffee and sticky buns."

"Maybe if you'd offer them scrambled eggs. 'Sticky buns' could be misinterpreted."

"That's even worse. I came back from the loo and…well, that chandelier will never know innocence again."

I had just finished punching my brother for sending coffee up my nose when Sam Redfern appeared with a basket of ripe peaches.

"Coffee and sticky buns, you said? I brought some peaches to go with. Hey, Jessie!"

"Hi, Sam. I…" I realized Ian had just swallowed a good third of a sticky bun whole. "I'm going to go get changed."

It is distinctly impossible to giggle when you've just had coffee up your nose, a fact that doubtless spared Ian some measure of embarrassment. By the time I was halfway up the stairs, he had pulled out her chair and was going to see if we had orange juice. Poor fellow.

Back in my room, I found Charlie, clothed in all but his shirt and vest, looking for the shirt that was presently outside-in on me.

"Found your shirt," I joked. He turned, looked at me, and smiled broadly.

"It looks good on you."

"Well, I did find a new way of wearing it." I took it off, shook it gently as if to remove wrinkles, and was about to hand it over when Charlie caught me by the wrists and…well, he can be very distracting, I'm sure I've mentioned that.

Also, I find that snogging is nice, with or without shirts on.

After a few very enjoyable moments of questionable behavior, in which my behavior was somewhat less than ladylike –okay, a little part of me was hoping we could catch up to where we'd been just before our nap, Charlie managed to ask what was going on downstairs. I delivered the news, not really caring what it meant. "Sam Redfern's downstairs, eating breakfast my brother somehow cooked. And Mad-Eye Moody stopped by with the requisition paperwork. Gave me some weird advice."

"As he does. Anything I'd find useful?"

"Er…not particularly. In other news, it seems the coffee cups downstairs are potion-detecting."

"Oh, yes. Those were very popular a few years ago. Mum has a few cups like that."

"Also, there's breakfast."

"Yes, you said Ian cooked it."

"I'm not sure you can louse up sticky buns."

"Bill certainly has, in the past." Charlie brought his kiss-punctuated inspection of my neck to a close. "What you're actually saying is that there are people downstairs who will notice if we take longer than average to come down."

"Eh…" I grinned and Charlie stopped his ministrations for a moment. "Didn't say I gave a damn."

"Still, I don't intend to compromise your honor. Sticky buns?"

"It's Sam and Ian. They'll make a few choice cracks, I'll blush furiously, and life will go on."

"Well, yes. But if we do much more, we'll be up here all day…and neither of us has eaten since dinner."

"True," I conceded to his logic. "Pity."

"You don't set out to build a movement in twenty minutes," Charlie explained, perhaps not realizing that I can, actually, assemble a standard-parts one in about that time. "Or to design a clock. There's an expression, 'too nice a job to rush,' and another is 'anything worth doing is worth doing well.'"

"And you intend to…" Again with the blushing. "Oh. Okay. Good." He placed a gentle kiss on my nose.

"You can be very cute when you're being scandalized."

"I'm not scandalized! I mean, I certainly don't think we shouldn't, if that's what you mean, or that there's something wrong with…why _am_ I blushing now?"

"It's adorable, and it doesn't last forever." He gave me an arch smile. "Perhaps just until tonight."

That made my heart race, I can't deny it. A definite schedule. Interesting.

"So the cure is experience?" I managed to ask. For some even more fascinating reason, that made him blush, too. "You're confounding my research now."

"You made mention of sticky buns?"

It must be said that getting dressed is rather easier with two people. Charlie had missed a brace, which I handed him, and I couldn't find one of my shoes, but he passed it to me. I recall thinking how nice it would be to get dressed that way always…though at times I did get very distracted. Stupid shoelaces, did you know you can tie the wrong pair together?

And then another thought, the one that had been edging near my mind since Moody's impromptu lecture, occurred to me. I had never considered it possible that I'd find someone with whom to spend my life. I had intended to live as Jamesina Worthing Tickes, grow my business, do good for my community and die when death came for me, not puling and grieving and living like a ghost, as my father did, not aging slowly until the spring ran down like my Granddad, but on my own two feet. Clap the baby into the fireproof safe and head after them as the building explodes into flame, with an arm on fire. Kill until the words won't come and the wand won't move. Kill until only one was left, and then try to kill again. Maybe fail. Maybe succeed only in hurting the greatest evil to stalk our world. Maybe die like my great-grandmother.

Or maybe it would be quicker than that. Maybe I would stand, and duck to avoid a curse to the midsection, taking it in the head even as I blocked the spell, protecting not only the first girl child, but the second son, second daughter, or whatever my never-born sibling would have been. Maybe, made weak by my affections and attachments, I would die like my mother had.

The question, of course, is which one died happier.

Great-Gran had just seen her protégé, her granddaughter-in-law, her friend, murdered in front of her. There wasn't even time before the second bomb went off to guarantee my safety, she had to just take the best chance and run through the flames herself. This, after losing a husband, a daughter-in-law, her whole family save Great-Uncle Emeric, and how many dozens of friends and colleagues? In almost a hundred years, she got to know death so well, I wouldn't be surprised if she took it out for tea and scones afterward.

My mother, though? She wasn't even quite thirty-five. She had no guarantee, other than Great-Gran, that I would live, that they weren't killing my father and Ian in Hogsmeade at that moment.

But then again, she did have Ian, until he was a bright child able to read and write and speak and say 'Mummy, I love you.' And she had me, for however short a time.

For the first time, I realized that Great-Gran had once been a mother, too. We always spoke of her as an institution, the way some folks speak of Dumbledore or of Merlin, a force of nature more than a fallible human soul. And yet, Granddad was a little child once. He was once a fifteen-year-old boy, dropping out of Hogwarts because his elder brother was killed and his old father too insane to protect the shop…and his mother too bold to stay home at nights.

I thought of Granddad the way Uncle Gard had once described him, younger than I, running the shop essentially alone, waiting for his mother to come home, not from buying groceries (though that was said to be the excuse she always used,) but from hunting and killing the agents of Grindelwald. He would patch her up when she came back, and thank heavens, she always did, and he would give the excuse to customers that she'd been home with the flu all week. And then he would tell his slowly-failing father that his Mum'd been at the Quidditch practice again, all bruised up from three-Bludger Quaffle-tag.

Could I do that to my son? Would I ever have the courage even to have one? That was a loaded question. Could I risk doing to Charlie what had been done to my father?

Or would Charlie bear up more like Uncle Gard, stepping in to help raise a bitty girl and a boy just old enough to know the answer to 'where did my Mummy go?' without asking? Taking care of his mad brother, whose own urges to do himself in were so strong they had to put him under the Body-Bind and worse? Finding a friend to help bring his brother out of it, only to see the idiot marry her and produce twins without ever being the person they used to know again?

And then, as I headed down the stairs, I realized all this supposition was kind of a moot point, and that I wouldn't have to worry for some time.

After all, Charlie hadn't asked me anything even close to the question that would provoke an actual decision. This might just be a mildly serious relationship, in which the couple discusses and eventually engages in some serious intimacy, but one which, after a respectable interval is allowed to fizzle out gracefully. Uncle Gard had those, I strongly suspected, but due to his own lack of nerve about admitting to whom they were with, he kept them secret. Of course, I had grave doubts as to whether any son of Molly Weasley would engage in that sort of thing, but there again, this was a modern age, and I could at least hope for a loosening of moral standards sufficient to give myself wiggle room.

Oh, soot. This was a man who wouldn't engage in prolonged snogging with people who'd notice downstairs, lest my reputation suffer. And we were about to travel to Switzerland by rail that evening, in 'just the one stateroom,' as agreed…

Oh, dear.

By the standard of respectability I had come to expect from Charlie, a…very interesting question seemed just about imminent.

It was at that moment of realization that I tripped and almost fell down the stairs. Charlie caught me, of course, and I blushed severely enough to disguise the fact that my train of thought up until that second had been the express to the village of Blushing, population me.

"Good lord, Jessie. Your gracefulness ends at the elbows sometimes."

"Lovely to see you, too, Sam," I replied, trying to smirk. "I see my brother's cooking has yet to claim another victim?"

"Oi!" Ian cried. "I haven't killed anyone!"

"What about our old governess, Mrs. Teaberry?" I asked mischievously. Ian went theatrically white.

"That wasn't _my_ fault."

"She thought you wanted to play tea party with your little sister, and that you had made biscuits."

"And so I had," Ian replied indignantly, before mumbling, "Not _my_ bloody fault Uncle Gard broke the capsaicin jar and put it in with the cinnamon."

"But, of course," I explained to Sam, "you must understand that Mrs. Teaberry was unbelievably ancient."

"Yes. Older than Merlin's mum," Ian agreed. "And considering the poor old bird's habits, you really couldn't blame us for what happened."

"That's true," I nodded mildly, sitting down and accepting a glass of milk. "After what we caught her doing with your toy broom."

"And the incident with Uncle Gard's undergarment drawer. Wherever _did_ she get all those clams? And in August, yet!"

"I forget, were you around when we caught her with the tinned herring, the Muggle vicar, and the toilet plunger? I thought Granddad was going to keel over."

"Of course I remember that! It was a week after the motorcycle gang from Birmingham, but before the order of Swedish nuns."

Just as Charlie and Samantha began to realize Ian and I were perhaps less than serious, we finally broke into peals of laughter.

I should explain. Ian and I have only ever had two babysitters of any kind, dear Mr. and Mrs. Fortescue, and even they only looked after us when _both_ Granddad and Uncle Gard were literally out of the country. Usually, our guardians just sort of traded off during the heavy travel season, much as we pleaded to go see the Fortescues, and of course, we eventually became old enough to come along on certain business trips.

But, being the sort of mischievous British children whose guardians despair of ever finding appropriate nannies for, however; the year I turned six we made a practice of being very quiet whenever one relative came home and left us with the other. Unusual silence in children is invariably considered to have horrible implications, and after many minutes of prying, one of us would dutifully let slip some tiny detail about the late Mrs. Teaberry, presumably a nanny the other relative had engaged while the first was away on business.

And then, with carefully-practiced straight faces and occasional accusations of the other child having told when they promised not to tell, the most awful, sordid, upsetting tale we could improvise tumbled out.

After we had sentenced the imaginary Mrs. Teaberry to a fearsome and highly moral-laden death involving lepers (which I mispronounced as leopards,) a hot kettle, and a squid, Uncle Gard caught on and insisted on being in on the joke next time. We were exhorted not to kill Mrs. Teaberry, but instead to look very worried as to when Granddad might leave again, lest she be engaged so soon after her discharge from hospital.

It then took our grandfather some three months after his return to figure out that not only A. Uncle Gard did not engage nannies, B., that there was, and would mercifully never be, a Mrs. Teaberry, and C. that we were perhaps the worst children in Blighty and that Father Christmas could be reasonably expected to beat us raw.

Of course, this had the pleasant effect for Uncle Gard that we didn't get into so much as one spot of trouble the whole time Granddad was away. Anything horrible it occurred to the two of us to do, we simply discussed in detail and carefully wrote down, so that it might be a good adventure for Mrs. Teaberry.

Granddad having been gone for some three solid months, we wound up with a surplus of comedic material, which we had been gaily employing on teachers, the milkman and horrified school friends ever since.

To their credit, Charlie and Samantha weren't horrified, though Charlie expressed a sudden understanding of my friendship with his twin brothers, and Sam began describing a miraculous idea she had for the two of us, which involved poker. That old prank does hinge fairly critically on two points, specifically the fact that Ian and I can be perfect tombstones of non-expression when we so choose, and the fact that most brothers and sisters don't get on nearly so well, which prevents people's expecting it.

And thus passed a fine breakfast. One of the sticky buns had a center so underdone it tasted like cold, batter-y chewing gum, but I felt no need to embarrass Ian in front of Sam. Bachelor cooking is universally horrible, so any achievement which didn't send people immediately hurtling headlong toward the worship of porcelain idols is, I think, to be encouraged.

And Charlie almost killed us all with laughter, recounting a particularly weird tale involving Romanian peasant children, a ready-to-hatch dragon's egg and a Muggle sport called football. It was one of those stories that would be horrible if you were actually there, and I did feel a little bit bad for the poor, memory-charmed children, especially the one whose foot got blistered, but I had to concede that the reaction of their parents was something in the line of hilarious. And if the little gits had just listened to the researchers, it wouldn't have happened.

Sam also told a story about some of the Muggle girls who had picked on her and her sisters when they were younger over their summer hols in America. Being Metamorphmagi, however, by the next summer the triplets had a secret weapon at their disposal. They promptly altered their appearances and blended into the evil clique of girls who had bothered them, destabilized the leader, and then, one by one, reappeared as they had looked before. When the evil leader tried to pick on one in their normal appearance, that one would respond with a burst of confidence and a retort so witty, the other two, still embedded, would crack up laughing.

I had suffered a little from teasing as a kid, but clearly nothing close to what the trips did, and even having heard the story before, I couldn't help howling with laughter. Ian, who had taken a long time to grow into his looks before demonstrating his Quidditch talent, was looking at Sam like she was some kind of muddle-accented Bodhisattva, and Charlie was as cracked up as I was.

"And, in the end," Sam reminisced coolly, "the evil girl's power was broken, her clique controlled by the three of us, and after a week of living the way she had treated us, she got her father's rifle and killed herself."

Nobody reacted for a second, apart from some jaw-drops of such suddenness as could pop your ears. Sam took a sip of coffee and another bite of her sticky bun. Ian finally closed his mouth and gulped.

"Really?"

"No. Could've done, but no." Ian and Charlie breathed again. This was, of course, the way Sam had ended the story when she told the Gryffindor prefect to stop letting Mel be bullied, but she'd also told me the real version. "Mum gathered us around, explained that while revenge was all well and good, rehabilitation would be better for the ten-year-old girl community. Then, when I objected to letting up, Mum pointed out that all things considered, we hadn't nearly been as bad off the previous summer as this girl was now. We had always and _would_ always have each other –this girl was an only child. Our parents loved us and were always to be found –this girl's parents were in film work, I think as a makeup artist and a cameraman. For all the airs she gave about her Hollywood parents, she hardly ever saw either of them and had, in fact, largely been brought up by a housekeeper."

"Didn't she know who your mother was?" I asked. I knew, but felt the story needed it.

"Oh, no. We kept it a secret to Muggle kids, and only told wizarding kids we liked. Professor McGonagall was surprised to find out when we went in for post-O.W.L. counseling."

"…Why?" Ian asked. Charlie looked just as puzzled, but I gave him a significant glance. Sam is perhaps the cagiest Redfern sister, and sooner or later, the incidentally strange facts about her family have a tendency to lead to nasty breakups. Clearly, she was attempting to be a bit more front-loaded with the information –good news for Ian, but only if he took it well. I knew he would, but she didn't.

"Well, you go in with it being common knowledge who your mother is, people never look at you for you –or at least, when they do, it's a mess harder for them to consider you as anything but your mum's daughter."

"…Everyone knows who Jess and I am," Ian replied. "What's so strange about-"

"Their mum is a movie star," I explained, even as Sam objected with "Actress!" the way she always has. Ian, to his credit, did not spit coffee, perhaps because I had, y'know, told him some time ago and warned him that Sam was kind of guarded about such things. In a moment of understanding, Charlie suddenly found something engrossing to do in the kitchen, and I joined him a moment later with some stray cups. Why everyone always forgets that the kitchen is only separated from the table by half a wall, thus allowing perfect view and hearing, I'll never know.

"Huh. Cool. Makes sense, really."

"Explain," Sam looked at him very suspiciously.

"Well, you're Metamorphmagi, right? They say the power runs in families, and in a Muggle, the ability to act well would probably imply a bit of talent in that area. And considering your mother's American, only an actress with significant success on the boards would be doing well enough to finance dual residences and keep up the secret of her wizard husband and witch daughters. That implies either Broadway or film, and film, I'm told, pays better. So talented, successful film actress…that just about spells out 'movie star,' now, doesn't it?"

"How'd you know my mother's American?" Sam asked, in a more perfect London accent than I'd heard her do in years.

"Jessie mentioned once that three of her friends were half-American, and considering she's only friends with the one set of triplets and that Americans are somewhat rare here, this being Great Britain…that, and you have an adorably mixed accent." Sam was about to grumble something especially unladylike under her breath, but Ian continued "'Specially when you curse."

"So what if I do? And what if she is?"

"Why would it be a bad thing? I think your accent's cute, and having a film star for a mother is no stranger than a clockmaker, an Auror or, you know, no mother at all." Sam went a little red, realizing what Ian meant.

"I suppose I don't know how well I have it, then," she replied softly, looking a bit embarrassed.

"Eh, you can probably guess at it. Why anyone would ever be ashamed of their parents for having a strange job, I'll never know. Though I expect it'd be rough, having a mum you're very proud of and no way to say so without people thinking it was a nasty brag." Ian patted her hand gently and Sam smiled –not her usual snarky smirk, either, but a genuine smile.

"Or having them think you were still sad over something happened years ago, mother or not, instead of just plain proud-of-your-mum."

"Yeah."

"And don't get me wrong, we are proud of her," Sam remarked, sighing a little. "She just finished a truly awful-sounding independent movie, but I can tell she made it to amuse Kendra and Melanie."

Charlie and I came back to the table, him with some more coffee and me with some vanilla ice cream from Fortescue's.

"I know it's breakfast, but sticky buns do go well with this," I explained, offering the cold substance around with a scoop.

"Ice cream is a breakfast food," Sam agreed. "It comes from milk, and therefore is dairy, and dairy is a health food, so ice cream is healthy and up to a whole scoop can be eaten for breakfast. Dad's rules of nutrition." To Ian's quizzical look, she explained "He runs the bookstore in Hogsmeade."

"So, what did happen with the evil cliquey-girl?" Charlie asked.

"We found her, looking like ourselves, and asked her what the hell had been wrong with her, and was she enjoying it, being treated as badly as she'd treated us. She had a bit of a tantrum and told us to die in a number of exciting ways, and when we began to critique her swearing, she finally realized we were triplets."

"…It wasn't _obvious?"_

"No, not especially. When we were little, we had different haircuts, different clothes and altogether different hair-colors. Unless you saw us all together, it wasn't by any means obvious. Mum more than saw to that."

"Why?"

"I d'know. Possibly to make sure we all grew up as individuals and to have our own personalities, possibly for our mother to win a bet with her makeup artist. Hard to say. We used to charm our hair back to normal for Hogwarts, though, since Mum wasn't there to help. Maintenance on Muggle hair-dye's dreadful. Your roots grow in and don't match." Sam's hair was, at that moment, a rich dark brown, different than Mel's almost-auburn and Kendra's nearly-blonde. "Of course, it eventually changed on its' own. Happens with Metas, I'm told. The color that suits you tends to be what grows out." She sighed and shrugged before continuing the story. "The mean girl was rather startled, of course, and immediately realized that we'd conspired to make her look bad –well, inasmuch as we'd all given smart-aleck retorts when she picked on us. She tried to hit Kendra."

"Really?"

"Yep. Ken handled it pretty well, all things considered. Mean girl looked pretty silly with her hands in a cuff hold behind her, still screaming and starting to cry like a shrew in a mousetrap." Sam inspected her nails in the deliberately nonchalant way that frequently implies high drama will ensue next. "And then she found out our secret."

"That you're Metamorphmagi?" Ian asked.

"That you're witches?" Charlie asked.

I already knew the story well, of course, and grinned.

"No. Our Mum showed up and asked what the devil was going on. We explained that this was the girl who teased us all last summer, and that she'd tried to hit Ken. Mum looked at the other girl, who recognized her perfectly, everyone does, and shrugged. 'Oh,' she said, 'well, when you're quite finished, I want to go pick out some new clothes for your father, and if you'd like to come along, you can bring little what's-her-name if you want. Maybe we can try that new fro-yo place.' Cool as you please, just like anyone else's Mum, except she's her."

"What's fro-yo?"

"Frozen yogurt." The boys still looked blank. "It's a thing. Like diet ice cream. So Mum turns around, presumably to leave us to our little fight, and the other girl's stopped squirming, so Ken lets her go, and we head off to follow our Mum. Mean girl asks us if that's who she thinks it is, we say 'yeah, that's our Mum.' She _shits kittens._ Omigod and holy crap and she can't believe she was mean to us and she's so sorry and why didn't we say something? The whole dumbass waltz. So I tell her, it's because Mum doesn't want backstabbing little come-buckets trying to be our friends just because of her. And then Ken gives me what-for for saying come-buckets (because, you know, we were ten and _so_ not allowed to say things like that,) and forgives the little bitch, even though Ken's the one she tried to hit, and Mel kind of shrugs and says 'why don't we take her with, it'll be fun.' And so we did."

"Did she stop being such a…well?" Charlie asked. I've noticed he very rarely swears.

"Oh, yes. Mum took her aside while we were selecting a tie for Dad and informed her in no uncertain terms of what happened to two-faced, conniving little sneaks and their rotten little cliques."

"Your Mum threatened a little kid?"

"No, she told her what happens. That the cliques get broken up the moment the girls leave high school, that the ones who've never learned to make real friends either drunk-n'flunk out of college or latch on to some boy and knock-up-and-out, before spending menial, pointless lives wasting hours upon hours in the PTA, being nasty and back-stabby to other mothers and trying to build a new little klatsch of friends, all of whom immediately drop them like hot coals the moment real life is more interesting than girl drama –meaning they're alone with their regrets about ninety percent of the time. They wind up looking forty in their thirties, being horrible stage mothers and soccer moms, embarrassing their children and generally being a waste of God's generous oxygen."

"Holy shit."

"Yeah. Mum doesn't play nice. The little bint apologized constantly, succeeded in making a real friend or two, and has apparently had a decent life ever since. She sometimes writes us letters asking how the UK is and when we'll be in town, and a while ago she invited us to her graduation party. We made a brief appearance and took over a nice present, because Mum doesn't believe in holding a grudge." Sam does, incidentally. "She's at some Muggle college or another now, majoring in something to do with kids. Still corresponds with Ken."

"So everyone lived happily ever after!" Charlie looked pleased. "That's a great story."

"Ehh, sometimes I feel like a bad person for still not forgiving her. I don't give a damn anymore, but I'm not like my sisters. I can't smile and make nice and act like nothing bad ever happened, not without lots of help or a damn good reason. I'm weird that way."

"That strikes me as a uniquely Ravenclaw sentiment, actually," Ian remarked. "Hufflepuffs forgive and forgive and keep working hard to make people better. Gryffindors approach the situation in such a way that the person is usually pretty darn scared of being bad again, and if not, a Gryff can usually handle it if they don't reform straight away. Ravenclaws simply mark that person on the not-to-be-trusted list and there it ends."

"That, or they do something moderately harmless, like stopping their watch," I grinned.

"I'm not so sure the way you do that really is harmless, Jims," Ian replied, using my oldest nickname. "I read a bit of biology and there's really a great potential for harm implied."

"Good thing I only do it to real prats like Fudge and Umbridge, then."

"By the way, Jess, when is your shop open normally?" It was a sensible question. As a pawnbroker and novelty shop owner, Sam kept very strange hours.

"Officially, ten to seven, but in practice, people primarily come in the afternoons. Possibly because a broken or missing watch causes some element of lateness –that, or they're waiting until they have someone to go with because of the heightened security. And I'll often let folks in between eight and ten if I'm up, or if they've made an early appointment then. But seven is the absolute latest I'll stay open anymore –have to, with Chamber meetings."

"Oh, good. I was wondering whether those'd interfere much with our shop's business."

"Nope. Should tuck right into your schedule."

"Good. Now that Knockturn's part of the Chamber, I felt I'd join it and such."

"Sensible thing to do. Want to be Chairperson?"

"Why? Are you bored of it?"

"Tremendously."

"Nice try, Jess." Sam grinned. "I'd rather head the Seasonal Advertising Committee, my humble self. It'd be a treat to pick out the wreaths and design the banners and such. Ken wants onto the Committee for Charity, and Mel wants you to form an Inter-Alley Cooperation Committee and put Apollo Nooke in charge, with her as secretary."

"Okay." Sam stared at me for a few minutes.

"…That's just _wrong_, you know."

"What is?"

"You're not supposed to come up, ask a politician to do something, and then have them say 'okay' and mean it like that."

"Okay, er…well, if nobody else wants the spots, and if nobody can back up an objection to you and yours getting them, then it shall be as you say."

"That's even worse!"

"What? I thought you'd be used to responsive government."

"There's responsive and then there's just ridiculous."

"Why? I mean it, and I'll do it, and it seems unlikely I won't succeed." I shrugged and Sam sighed at me.

"You could at least have the decency to argue a little bit."

"Oh. Bugger. I knew I'd forgot something." Sam finally joined the boys in laughing. "What? After all, I'm allowed to be new at this for at least another ten hours. Elected journeymen are never taken entirely seriously."

A few moments later, some actual customers arrived. Ian helped a couple of them pick out watches and sold an alarm clock, which was nice of him. The others seemed to have come for news from me, so I did a bit of shrugging it off before introducing them to Sam. Maggie Malkin knew her already, as did dear old Florean Fortescue but she had never met Gordon Eelop or the little boy in dark glasses clinging gently to Florean's hand.

"And this is my nephew," the dear old ice-cream man explained. I knew he was actually more like a great-nephew, but the Fortescues tend to gloss over genealogical specifics. "Named for me, but he goes by Loren, just in case the resemblance proves too overwhelming. This is Madam Tickes, Loren, the lady who made your watch."

"Nice to meet you, ma'am." The little boy reached out a hand in almost the right direction and I shook it. "It's a very good watch. I can tell time myself."

"Really? Want to show me?" I crouched down to his level and watched as he opened the crystal on the Braille watch, carefully feeling the hands with his small fingers. "That's very good! What time is it now?"

"Twelve-thirty-seven. I like the little fast hand best."

"Know what it's called?"

"The second hand, because it counts seconds."

"Good fellow!" An idea suddenly occurred to me. "Loren, how would you like to make a clock?" He grinned really, really big and I invited him just past the half-wall into the main workroom. "We'll be just a little while," I told the grownups, but they were too busy chatting it up with Sam. I knew her reputation was pretty impressive, and they probably wanted to see for themselves. Ian was also handling any business that might crop up capably.

I keep a few partially-assembled movements and standard parts available for just such an occasion. One of the Ian Tickes Grand Alarms ought to do, I thought, and it only took me a few moments to locate a nearly-complete movement, a ready case, a blank face and the other odds and ends that go into a custom-body with standard movement. It also didn't take long to explain the basics of how clocks are made. Loren was a fast learner, and I sat him at my own workbench, telling him where each tool could be found using clock-face directions. "The inkbottle is to your eleven-thirty, here, and there's a pen in the groove here. Want to use a stencil for the numerals? I've got a whole bunch of 'em, or you could do them freehand."

"I like stencils."

"Okay. What kind of font do you think?"

"…Fancy!"

"Here's an Edwardian one…and here's a serif Roman set."

"What's serif?" I pointed to the letter's tail, and when Loren squinted and leaned closer, I guided his finger over the grooves of the stencil instead. He nodded understandingly.

"These little decoration lines, when a font has them, it's serif. If it doesn't, it's sans serif. Sans means 'without.' Do you think Roman numbers or Arabic?"

"Roman ones are the exey kind?"

"Yeah."

"Just regular is good."

"Okay."

The kid picked out a nice, serif-y set of cursive numerals and set to work inking the face for embossing while I set up the last five gears, the three hands and the case for him to put together himself. Charlie came in from the kitchen and gave me a strange look.

"Who's this?"

"Oh! Loren, this is Charlie Weasley. Charlie, this is Loren Fortescue. He's making a clock today."

"Nice ta' meet you," Loren shook hands like a little grownup and then returned to his inking.

"What kind of clock is it?" Charlie asked.

"An Ian Tickes Grand Alarm," Loren announced proudly.

"Tickes clocks have the name of their original line designer, and Grand denotes the size. This is a larger-than-average alarm clock," I explained.

"With seriffy numberals," Loren added, neatly finishing the '3.'

"Yes. Right now Loren is inking them, and in a few moments we'll add the powder to emboss them. That's how the numerals come out raised."

"I see!" Charlie grinned, covertly passing me the pad of paper from the desk on which he'd written 'Blind?' "The powder sticks to the ink, right?"

"And then we make it hot," Loren explained. "It melts and turns into clock letters that stick up."

"Exactly," I grinned, writing 'visually impaired after a fire,' on the pad and slipping it back to Charlie. "And while it's baking, Loren can put together these gears here and set the movement into its' case."

"I'm not making the whole clock," the little boy sighed, "I'm just putting together most of it."

"But if you want to learn how to make the rest, you certainly can," I patted him on the shoulder. "I was about your age when I started learning. Maybe a bit younger, but not by much."

"You could see, though," Loren pointed out, looking at us sadly over his dark glasses. "I can only sorta see."

"It's the touch that's the important thing, actually. A steady hand's far more important than good eyesight, especially when you're working out something like a spring tension ratio. You see something, that's all well and good, but what if your eyes are wrong? Fingers almost never are." I gave the movement a quick wind with screw pliers (as the key wasn't on it yet,) and put it in Loren's hand, folding his little fingers around the ticking mechanism. "Feel that?"

"Yeah."

"Where do the hands go?"

"Here," he touched the pin, which was rotating at measured intervals.

"Where does the key go?"

"Key?"

"The winding thing."

"Here!" He got that right, too.

"See? Hands are just as good as eyes. Better, even." Oh, that little boy had a precious smile! "Keep on with the inking; I'll go get you the other parts."

"Okay, Madam Tickes."

"Call me Jessie. Just about everyone does." I headed downstairs to the other workroom and Charlie followed. "You were going to say something?"

"I didn't know you let people make their own clocks."

"I don't, ordinarily, but I thought he'd enjoy it. And it's not hard."

"Er…yes, actually, it kind of is. I couldn't make a clock."

"With a pre-assembled movement, I think you could."

"I'm not so sure. What if he wants to learn to make movements next?"

"Then I'll teach him to make movements. Why?" I shrugged and Charlie smiled gently.

"I just think it's sweet of you to take an interest in little kids."

"Little kids are awesome! Candy-eating, fairy-tale-believing...better class of people, really."

"Would you ever be interested in having some of your own?" he asked. I went a bit red and started gathering up parts for Loren's clock.

"I suppose, maybe."

"I didn't know if it was something your family expected or optional."

"Oh, it's generally expected that _someone_ will produce _some_ kind of heir. I always kind of figured I'd be handing the shop down to a nephew or niece." Charlie smirked wryly.

"Perhaps a Metamorphmagic one?"

"You noticed them, too? Idn't it cute?"

"Adorable. Kind of off-putting, but they do seem to have an interest in each other."

"They have a date this evening, probably right after they set us on the train."

"Is she always that defensive?"

"Yes." I picked up a shop basket and put the parts I'd collected into it. "She's had bad luck before, that, and she's used to being the protective one in her family. I suspect she's the oldest triplet, but, of course, even they don't know."

"Oldest pairs best with oldest, you think?"

"Second and second are working out well so far," I replied mischievously. There was an all-too-brief little kiss after that, and I seem to remember making some rapid calculations of how long it takes people to become suspicious of a known couple going downstairs to get parts together, and wondering if I could somehow fudge their math.

But I didn't. We returned upstairs with the parts and I helped Loren finish his clock while Charlie went back to the twins' to pack. Loren then proudly presented the clock to his very proud granduncle, and I attended to business for just enough time to catch up on the latest news, do an on-the-fly repair and sell five different timepieces. Then Ian sent me upstairs to pack the magnificent traveling case he had ordered for a sitting-the-masterpiece present. It had dozens of tool compartments, as well as space for a few days' clothes, and even an interior garment bag with an Ironing Charm, for dress robes.

Traditionally, there is a Ball at each of the two times a year the Guild tries masters, and I remembered this fact just after an owl arrived from my stepmother wishing the best of luck and asking what color dress robes I had for it. Panicking, I sent Min to warn Charlie (she clucked at me disapprovingly for a moment, as if disappointed I'd forgotten,) and then I went upstairs to check my wardrobe for something appropriate.

Disaster. Would you believe my dress robes from fifth through seventh year didn't fit? I thought of asking Mel Redfern for help, but then I remembered her mother was in town and that meant it would take forever and a weekend and I'd wind up with new everything. And Ginny was either back at the Weasley's or, I realized, already busy picking out Charlie's clothes. (I did turn out to be right on that score.) So I did the next best thing and Flooed to the Hogsmeade shop to visit my stepmother.

"Jamesina!" My stepmother, whose name is Sarah, by the way, set down the pen with which she'd been inking a face and rushed over to the fireplace to hug me. I'd stopped minding a few months back, and this time I returned her hug. "What are you doing here? You should be getting ready to go sit your masterpiece!"

"I'm all packed and I leave on the evening train."

"Train!" Sarah grinned. "That's a good idea. Takes longer, but gives you time to think and to get a good night's sleep. That, and you always look so peaky after Apparating."

"It still makes me kind of sick," I confessed. "Erm…I have a slight problem."

"What's wrong?"

"Well…I still have the dress robes you picked out for me, but…"

"You're six inches taller, they wouldn't fit," Sarah announced bluntly.

"As I discovered just a moment or two ago," I smiled sheepishly. "Nothing to wear for the Ball."

"Oh, Jessie!" She shook her head and grinned. "You're hopeless in a cute way. Didn't you notice your inseams were longer?" She put away the part she was working on.

"They measure me and send over stuff in the right colors. I just wear what comes."

"That's likely the problem with business attire. You get used to competent tailoring and then when you have to buy off-the-rack, you're helpless. I have the same trouble myself, but picking things for the twins keeps my hand in." I followed her upstairs.

"Where are they, by the way?"

"Napping on their grandfather, whom I suspect is also napping behind that Manual of Unusual Gear Design. Oh! And I heard about your little incident in the Alley last night."

"You did?" My face fell.

"Yes, and while I'm decidedly proud of you, I can't say I approve of such risks. That Lestrange woman is seven flavors of mad and while you handled it well this time, I'd rather not get an owl asking me to come identify remains. Think you could perhaps avoid that in the future?"

"I'll try."

"Good! I'll see if I can't find a few of your mother's things from storage to send over. I seem to recall her owning some sort of bat, not for Bludgers, but another kind. Might actually be intended for Death Eaters." She opened the door to the attic and we climbed up. "And I'm pretty sure her old dress robes will fit you now. You're about her height, finally, and they've come back into fashion just in time."

Sometimes I really do like my stepmother.

It didn't take her long to pick out a set of dress robes for me. They were simply incomparable, and for some reason she developed a slight sniffle when I tried them on. I was pleased to hear I look like my mother, but it was rather hard to watch Sarah noticing. They were friends, and at times I think the fact that she'd have been my Auntie if nothing had happened to Mum was what kept me civil to her.

I began to feel a little bit worse about that. Wasn't her fault my father's a prat, and I'd probably been rather unfair to be so distant and casual with her for so long. It had taken me quite some time to be cordial, and I realized it probably shouldn't have. I'd probably been rather a prat, myself.

"Will you be coming to the Guild Ball this year?" I asked, ducking behind a screen to change back to my normal clothes.

"I was thinking about it," Sarah smiled. "Especially since you'll be pronounced a Master then."

"If I do well, I will."

"I don't think it's statistically likely you won't. You do an inordinate amount of work, and given that practice makes perfect, signs seem to indicate a high probability of passing with flying colors." I leaned my head past the edge of the screen and grinned.

"Do I detect bias?"

"Maybe a little," she smiled back. "But I really do believe you'll do well."

"That really does help," I admitted. Her grin brightened and I felt like a total heel for not involving her more in my life. I made a decision then. "Oh, there's another question I have for you."

"Another of dress?"

"Well, sort of." I started buttoning up my cuffs. "I actually invited Charlie Weasley to join me on the train to Switzerland."

"To be your escort at the ball? Good idea!"

"Huh?"

"He's the second brother, right?" I nodded. "He's just the right height for dancing and the Weasley boys all know how. He'll look wonderful in white tie."

"True. He looks good in most things." A mischievous voice in my head made a very arch comment about 'lack thereof' and I shook my head to get the notion out. "I'm also…you know…seeing him."

Sarah looked very surprised at that.

"Really?"

"Yep. For a couple of months now."

"I knew your grandfather and uncle spoke with him after the shop was attacked."

"That…would be the day after our first date."

"Really!" She brightened considerably. "That's splendid! What's he like?"

"Adorable," I admitted, feeling a bit silly about how gushy the conversation was about to get. "He's a writer and zoological researcher, and sometimes he does a bit of work at his brothers' shop. He looks after everyone and doesn't mind my working late, and he's hilariously funny to talk to. And you don't have to worry that he's planning a prank on you –he's got this honest face that just tells you everything…but he's still silly sometimes. Sensible, though, about most things, and he's great at patching up burns."

"Working with the dragons, I'd hope so!"

"Oh, he's so good with animals!" Yep, this was gushy alright. "My owl, Min, had a vitamin deficiency out of the shop, which led to her getting a weird sort of rash where the talons connect to her feet. Charlie got the right medicine for her and was so careful putting it on, she even nuzzled his head with her beak while he was doing it. And then he went over to Eeylops and very politely let them know that their owls weren't getting enough whatever-it-was, and when Becky Feathersham copped an attitude, he just left a note for the manager. I went over and gave them holy hell and got Becky put on notice. But Charlie's so much nicer."

"So I take it things are medium to serious?"

"Not _very_ serious. We see as much of each other as we can, which isn't hard, given that he and his brothers tend to eat over a lot, and he's taught me a little more in the way of defensive spells. We sometimes go to the Muggle movies or out for food."

"You'll need something exciting to wear on the train, I think," Sarah grinned. I looked rather scandalized. "Dressing for dinner, Jess. What were _you_ thinking?" I went pretty darned scarlet. "Oh. I take it you…erm?"

"Actually, no. Might at some point, but no."

This was, incidentally, more information about my personal life than I'd ever, _ever_ let her know about.

"Well, you're a grown woman, acquainted with the precautionary arts and sensible enough not to make silly mistakes. Why not pounce him?" I choked a bit on that phrase. "You're entitled to some fun now and then, and even if it's not seriously serious, it's rather enjoyable."

"…That's the rumor, yes."

"I remember my first pounce. It wasn't entirely fun, but the second time was delightful. It helps to try one of each gender, if you're inclined that way, and if you do eventually settle down, you'll have more interesting skills to bring to the table."

It was during this conversation that I came closer to strangling on my own tonsils than I likely ever will again. You'll know when.

"You…but…"

"Oh, Jessie, you can't think grownups are as serious as they let on. Your father is passably decent at pouncing, but even better at being pounced. I do hope _that's_ not genetic. Your mother, on the other hand-" I almost died of a coughing fit and poor Sarah thumped me on the back.

"You and Mum?" I managed to gasp, scandalized.

"Oh, no, not in that way, dear. We were just good friends who occasionally compared notes. Not that I didn't consider it, she was quite the dish, but her being older and eventually married, there wasn't much chance of it. That, and she was preposterously monogamous. I don't think she pounced anyone but your dad."

"Oh." I really didn't know what to make of that. "Good."

"Not that she didn't do so with respectable frequency for several years before they were married. Good heavens, you look shocked."

"I…er…didn't really need to know most of this…"

"It's important to be aware of the real standards. Those old fogies in Diagon likely sound forth about morals and such, but the fact is, Jamesina, there's very few people in the world who live up to the letter of the rule. They're really more like guidelines, anyway."

"I suppose so."

"Good! Now let's go find you a spectacular dinner ensemble and some exciting undergarments."

"Some what?"

"You don't play Quidditch without a broom and you don't pounce without exciting undergarments if it can possibly be avoided. That, and you need something strapless for the dress robes and your mother's won't work at all."

"They won't?"

"You're the same size in the shoulders and height, but Siobhan was just a hair on the side of barrel-chested. That, and you seem to have something more along the lines of a Switch figure." I was wondering what on earth that meant when Sarah elaborated. "Your bosom's larger and your ribs aren't. The dress fits, but some undergarments will be necessary to produce the ideal effect. Oh, stop looking so strangled. There's nothing wrong with bending nature to our nylon and spandex will."

"I…am suddenly rather sorry I didn't bring up these topics in school."

"Me, too, dear, you might have learned something useful. Not that school's the best place to experiment in anything but Potions. No space at all in those Ravenclaw four-posters."

"…I thought you were a Hufflepuff."

"Yes. The most hard-working house."

To my surprise, I managed not to die of embarrassed shock during the rest of the visit. We spent an inordinate amount of time and money at a few of the Hogsmeade shops, and I seem to recall a complete overhaul of my interior wardrobe layers. (I'd been buying the wrong bra size, which explained a lot.) I also began to realize what it might have been like to have a mother. There were so many girly things that I didn't know –and Sarah seemed a little less than surprised at my ignorance.

And then, of course, it must be said that she is one of the bluntest, most earthy creatures ever to walk the earth. Fine taste in clothing, though.

I returned home with my packages and had just finished packing when Charlie arrived with his traveling case. Ian and Sam took us to the station, and, well, off we went.

It was to be a very exciting trip.


	27. Some Competition

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Some Competition

It must be remarked that a first-class stateroom on the Trans-European Rail is one of the most singularly luxurious and impressive overnighting spots in the world. There were crystal glasses, brass fittings for everything, glorious leather armchairs that made even the best ones at Tickes and Sons look almost shabby by comparison –and, of course, dozens of little Victorian gadgets for making one comfortable. I was somewhat startled to notice an engraved brass panel with buttons at hand's point on the chair's arm, but assumed Jessie would try them before I had to ask what on earth they were for.

Also, while I was used to camping tents and such being rather bigger inside than they probably should have been, the train seemed to take the notion to unusual limits. Our stateroom's parlor was probably twelve feet wide –though I knew we had only one side of the car, with a hallway between two suites. I was surprised that Jessie seemed so perfectly used to it.

"Welcome to the Trans-European," an officious little voice announced, and I spun around in surprise to discover a house-elf in an elegantly embroidered red and gold not-garment that was probably a pillowcase. "I am Izzy and I'll be your steward this evening." It was odd –unlike the Hogwarts elves, Izzy had a very dignified tone. "Will you be requiring anything?"

"I don't think so…it isn't too long until dinner, I suppose?" Jessie asked.

"Dinner is at eight o'clock in the Roth car, though of course, room service is available at any time on request. There is also a fine band in the Lord car this evening, Gil Holzfaller and his orchestra."

"How delightful," Jessie's tone was as unusually formal as the little elf's. "I heard they were playing on the line this season."

"Yes, they are very nice. It's a pleasure to have you with us again, Madam Tickes."

"It's good to be back, Izzy. I noticed they've added two stations."

"Oh, yes," the elf agreed. "Has the gentleman traveled with us before?"

"No, this will be his first trip." She introduced me and explained only that I was a research zoologist and author, as if that was all anyone would ask. The elf didn't even appear curious as to why I was traveling with her, and rather than shaking hands, he bowed.

"Welcome to the line, Mr. Weasley," The elf turned to me. "Dinner is a black-tie affair on the Trans-European, holidays excepted, and many of our guests enjoy the dance in the Lord car, beginning at seven. There will also be brandy and cigars in the drawing room of the Morgan, while many of the ladies tend to prefer the piano lounge, and of course, we provide breakfast service in the staterooms."

"Ah," I replied, nodding, trying not to look too perplexed. It was like riding an old movie to Switzerland. "Sounds lovely."

"Yes. There will also be no murder this evening, as the detective is regrettably engaged on a case outside the line. I apologize for the inconvenience."

"That's all right. We have return tickets," Jessie waved her hand dismissively.

"Good, good. It's a shame to miss the murder on one's first trip, really, especially one of ours. The detective this season is particularly good –though it does make for the occasional cancellation when cases intervene. Can I bring you anything to drink, sir?"

"Er…yes, thank you." The elf waited expectantly, and it was a moment before I remembered that there were _options_ from which to choose on this sort of train. "Just water, thanks."

"And you, Madam Tickes?"

"Does the Trans-European still have that excellent spice and orange tea?"

"Of course, madam. It is one of our specialties."

"How about early tea for the two of us, then?"

"Very good! It will be brought directly." The little elf seemed genuinely pleased to have something to do for us –that's always bothered me a little about house-elves. "It may also interest you to know that several other members of the Chronologie Mechanique will be traveling with us this evening. Shall I arrange the table accordingly?"

"Yes, please. Very kind of you to offer."

"Only the best service for our old friends, Madam. And, pardon my forwardness, but we of the Trans-European would all like to wish you the best of luck at the Convention." Jessie shook the hand he offered, which looked a bit strange, what with relative size and all.

"Thank you, Izzy. I get the feeling I'm going to need it." The elf let out a confident scoff of encouragement and patted her on the hand. I got the impression they'd known one another for awhile.

"Your tea will be by shortly. Good afternoon to you both." And with that, we were alone again.

"Nice fellow," I observed.

"Oh, yes. Isambard is the chief steward on this particular part of the line, now, but he used to have charge of the staterooms when Granddad and Uncle Gard used to take us to the Convention. I've known him since I was a little girl."

"Isambard?"

"That's his proper name. A lot of house-elves who work in Rail don't give their proper ones, on account of silly wizards and witches who expect them to have silly nicknames, so, as a matter of pride, they do. It'd be the height of presumption for a passenger to address him by his real name –as if he were to call you 'Charlie' instead of _'Mr. Weasley'_ or '_Sir_.'" She did a fair imitation of the elf's officious tone.

"That's strange."

"Yes, but it makes perfect sense, really. I only know he's called Isambard because I used to insist on being called by my own nickname. Reciprocity and all."

"I wonder if all house-elves are like that."

"Rail ones are. A lot of house ones are actually _named_ Dinky and Pokey and what-not, usually due to owners who didn't understand the system. It goes in cycles. Every so often you'll get somebody's Muggle-born wife or something who objects to servility or informality or whatever, and she hands out the proper names. Then, since they tend to like the lady of the house, they allow her to address them so. Anyone else gets told the nickname, and within a generation or two, you get odd-named elves. Then it resets again."

"That's mad."

"You think that's crazy, you should read the old sumptuary rules for tradesmen of Diagon." Jessie took off her greatcoat, revealing a very different outfit than what she usually wore –a kind of high-collared ladies' shirt that narrowed at her waist, with a wide belt and a long, black skirt. I suddenly understood what Ginny meant about rail travel, and was pleased she'd thought to charm some stripes onto my own trousers and Transfigure me a waistcoat. "Did you know that your brothers' green jackets are actually _correct_, according to the old system? Tenanted owners of shops less than three years open traditionally had to wear at least one green garment in public life."

"Is that where the description 'green' for neophytes of any kind comes from?"

"No, I think that actually comes from wood," Jessie explained, opening one of the side doors and sliding her traveling case out of it. Apparently the porters had put both of our cases there. "But it's meant to represent roughly the same idea."

"What would you be supposed to wear?"

"A corset, most likely. Those old rules date from long enough ago, female tradesmen weren't really accounted for. Blue is an appropriate color for journeymen owners, though, so I do wear a lot of that. Brown is also acceptable."

"How is it that you know all this old-timey trivia?"

"Occupational hazard, really." She undid the brooch at her throat and unbuttoned the high collar, stretching her neck as if it'd been uncomfortable. "Being the granddaughter of an amateur historian leads to very educational conversation, to say nothing of bedtime stories. And being a comparatively young person in a profession that's 'storied and historical,'" she imitated the stodgy tone again, "by which, of course, I mean 'full of old people,' one is usually obligated to pay attention. After awhile, it tends to stick."

"It'd be interesting to set a novel in olden times, I expect."

"If you ever want to, just sit down-ear from Granddad." Jessie looked at me suddenly. "What's it like to have parents?"

"Parents?"

"You know, of the proper age for it. Grandfathers are older and stodgier in some ways, but more permissive in others. And Uncle Gard's practically Ian's and my older brother –he was a teenager himself when we were small. Is it different, to have parents?"

"I would imagine so," I replied, realizing yet again how different our childhoods had been. "Mothers tend to make rather an issue of the exact duration of pregnancy when one misbehaves, and they also remain keenly aware that, having brought us into the world, they are perfectly capable of taking us out of it. And fathers are much like grandfathers and uncles, except they tend to delegate the day-to-day authority to the mothers. Mine, at least, is more a peacemaker than anything else –if I had to lay odds on who was more dangerous, it'd be Mum."

"I get that impression, too."

"It's also nice to have uncles, though. I can only remember mine a little. I think I lost them the same year you lost your mother and great-grandmother."

"Yes. I've read about it." She sank into a chair beside me and sighed. "I think not having my mother may have made me a worse person."

"Why do you say that? I think you're perfectly fine."

"I'm vindictive, petty and almost entirely unable to treat people decently if I feel they've failed."

"There's nothing wrong with that."

"Yes, there is. My stepmother cares a terrible lot about me, and I've treated her like an intruder for years. The one person who not only knew my Mum, but could teach me a little of what a mother should teach a kid, and I've never once called her by anything but her first name."

"Well, you can't very well call her 'Stepmother,' now, can you? I don't think they _have_ a proper title for stepmothers other than first name. Has she ever asked you to call her anything in particular?"

"No."

"Has she ever seemed offended by how you treat her?"

"No."

"Do you get the impression she _understands?_ I mean, she did lose your mum also."

"That's the worst part. I think she _does_ understand. But it still doesn't excuse my ignoring her because I was angry about my stupid father."

"That's something I've always wondered about with you, anyway," I reached out and stroked her hand. "Why _are_ you angry with him?"

"He's a coward and he was never there when we needed him."

"I'd heard he went mad when your mother died."

"He did." Jessie sighed and I realized she was finally going to explain. "They had to put him under Imperimenta at St. Mungo's to prevent him from offing himself like a great pillock. That's within an inch of Imperius. And for years, he was barely safe to leave alone. Our house-elf looked after him."

"Your family has a house-elf?"

"Had. Dixie died of old age when I was almost eleven and Granddad sent my father right back to St. Mungo's. Sarah –that's my stepmother, went in when she found out what he was like, and she did something…got his mind back. He married her inside of a month and went back to working in the family shop, but he never spoke to Ian or I –or even looked at us, really, unless Sarah or Granddad made him."

"Jess…I'm no authority on mental health, but did you ever consider the possibility that he can't?"

"Can't talk to your own children?"

"Everyone I've ever met who knew your mother has remarked on the resemblance. I've even seen pictures. You and Ian look just like her, in different ways, but it's very hard for someone who's been through a loss to see the same features and mannerisms without getting a bit prickly, if not outright bursting into tears. My Great-Aunt Muriel objects more than anyone else to my brothers' pranks, but it isn't because they annoy her. They remind her of my uncles to the point where it's painful for her. Mightn't it be the same with your dad?"

"Most likely," Jessie sniffed a little, clearly trying not to cry. "It just doesn't seem very fair. Ian and Granddad and Uncle Gard handle it. Even Sarah does. Why can't he?"

"Perhaps for the same reason I couldn't handle it if something happened to you," I got out of my chair and hugged her as the sniffles gave way to tears. She wouldn't let them run down her cheeks, but sleeved them away as if ashamed of showing such weakness, reaching up and behind her glasses every time. I was a little surprised; not many girls look good at all when they cry. Maybe it was how she did it. "Not everyone can keep their mind after a loss like that. It's not that he doesn't care about you –it's just that he cares so much, he's likely scared to get attached again."

"You think so?"

"I have it on good authority," I caught her arm before she could sleeve at her eyes again, placed a kiss on the back of her hand, and wiped the last tears away with my pocket handkerchief. She half-smiled ruefully and raised an eyebrow.

"Let me guess. Florean Fortescue."

"We had a long talk the day you tricked Umbridge," I confirmed. She looked thoughtful.

"You know, he's one of the only people who ever told me stories where my parents sounded like normal witch and wizard? Everyone else makes them out to be so heroically tragic, they come off as people in fairy tales. Florean tells me about the time my mother set a gallon of hot fudge on fire by accident, or about my father's inhaling a mainspring and having to have it fished out of his nose on the end of a magnetic stick." She wiped her glasses thoughtfully and put them back on. "I sometimes wonder why he bothers."

"Bothers?"

"To be nice to me."

"Perhaps he's got a long-standing political coup d'etat planned and he's grooming you to be a suitable manager of Diagon." Jessie stared at me for a moment and burst out laughing.

"Yep, you definitely talked to him."

"But what brought all this on?" I asked, tracing the pattern on the palm of her hand gently. "You spoke to your stepmother?"

"Visited, yeah. We had a splendidly…detailed chat, and I just came to the uncomfortable realization that I could've treated her much better."

With a soft 'pop,' a tray of tea and cake appeared on the small table and we both flinched, but no elf was visible. The distraction was welcome, and Jessie poured me a cup of tea before I could ask. I noticed she knew exactly how I take my tea –not a hard thing to notice and remember, but also not something most people bother with.

If I had to describe her with nothing but habits and skills, that trick of remembering little details about people, probably like she recalls gears in various watches, and applying the knowledge so casually it seems unconscious, well, I'd mention that.

"Well, introspection is nice, but too much or too often leads to indigestion," I remarked, by way of switching from an unpleasant topic to a nicer one.

"Who delivered _that_ sterling quote?"

"I don't know. Some Minister of Magic who was subsequently not re-elected, I presume. Finding out hard truths about oneself and making them better is just part of growing up. At least you didn't come to the conclusion that you were lying to yourself about what you really wanted from life. You seem to have always had a good grasp on that."

"You didn't?" I sighed and she closed her hand gently around mine.

"I thought I wanted to play pro Quidditch once. I was in the Hospital Wing after a bad hex when I realized I was looking forward more to Care of Magical Creatures than practice. I tried to tell my girlfriend about it, but she didn't seem to understand." Even years later, the memory was still just painful enough for me to avoid mentioning it. "We broke up within the month and I spent the last few months of the year studying for my O.W.L.s and trying to decide what it was I really wanted to do. Finally, I asked Professor McGonagall what she thought I should do."

"What did she say?"

"She told me that as long as the team won games, she'd see to it that I had extra lessons with Professor Kettleburn and her, and she promised me a recommendation to intern with the naturalist of my choice if we beat Slytherin to the Cup."

"Bit obsessive about sport, isn't she?"

"Terribly. Not a bad teacher, though. It was on her say-so that they accepted me to work in Romania. I didn't yet qualify for the magizoological fellowship, but my Transfiguration marks got me a place there in Obfuscation and Concealment. I got the fellowship within half a year, and since then I've been able to do what I loved –learn and write about animals." Jessie took my hand in hers and smiled gently. "You seem to have always known what you were supposed to do –and you've done most of it already."

"Actually, taking over the family business was always a choice. I'm just lucky in that I happened to like making clocks and watches and running a small business."

"You're also very good at both, if that Gringotts expedition was any indication."

"'Prosperity is only an indication of talent for _business_,' as the impossible old gentlemen in the Guild would say. They claim that some of the most prosperous shops have remained that way by turning out mediocrity on a consistent basis." She grinned with a little half-shrug, as if uncertain whether they might mean her.

"I heard someone say that your shop's watches were very consistent. What does that even mean?"

"Reliable, in some cases. In other cases it means that one generally knows what one's getting, and that there's no difference between the same model of Tickes watch made in 1891 and one made in 1991. And they're right on that. If there's demand for a given model, we keep making it, the same way, to the same specs, forever. However, if someone likes about 90% of a given model and just wants a little change, we'll bring out a bespoke model that improves upon the old, and even put it into production if there's demand. And at least one model of timepiece per season is new. Last summer I put out six."

"So you do the innovation yourself?"

"Of course, things would be stagnating otherwise. And there's nothing worse than stagnation in a fashionable trade."

"That begs another question. How many watches do people really buy?"

"Not very many in a lifetime, at least, not among older men. A man often inherits a watch, and if he passes it along, he might buy a replacement that's a lot like the original –or just a little different, or a total change, depending on how much of a mid-life crisis is going on. Other times, there are more nephews or sons than expected, and more watches get purchased then. Parents who buy watches for their children get a few per child –kids grow, you understand, that and fashions change, and of course, a lady might buy two or three watches a year, to go with various clothing styles. Watches are much more like jewelry for ladies. For gentlemen, a watch is more about permanence –though a lot of younger men are buying them for style now, and I'm also noticing a collectors' market. There's also a roaring fashion in gadgetty watches for younger men and even some older ones –watches that _do_ something, a different one for every hobby. I think that's Muggle influence, that, or because I've started banging out gadgetty ones. They're _fun_."

"So sales are picking up?"

"In some ways, yeah, what with guys buying many more watches and ladies going completely daft for style. In other ways, it's just evening out. After all, there aren't quite as many people as there once were –though the tourist trade offsets that."

She let out a heavy sigh and resumed petting my hand with hers.

"Why don't you feel successful, then?"

"I didn't make much of the shop's reputation myself. About the only designs of mine that fly off the shelves are ladies' watches, children's alarm clocks (which are really _stupidly_ easy, by the way,) the gadget watches, like for swimming and racing and gardening, and one particular sort of Quidditch stopwatch that Ian's team was photographed with in a magazine."

"That silver one with the fourth hand and available team colors? With the holder-thing for practice that screws on and clips to a broomstick?" She nodded. "Merlin's socks! That was your design?"

"Oh, yes. The one displayed on the third center shelf on the left wall, it's sold out of drawer D-10 at the shop. You've heard of it?"

"Heard of it, I wanted one! I knew it was a Tickes watch, but I just thought it was the latest sports model."

"Oh, it is. I was just the one who did it. Got all manner of advice from Ian, though, and I bought some referees drinks at the Leaky Cauldron to get their thoughts. Would you like one? Inventory's down to just a few ready-made, but I could pop one together for you when we get back from our trip."

"That's a forty-Galleon stopwatch!"

"So?"

"…You shouldn't just offer to make me one, as if it were brownies or tea cake."

"Why not? You don't think Mrs. Fortescue gets a three-way banana split with coconut ice cream any time she pleases? Or that the Eeylop grandchildren don't have little pet owls soon as they're old enough? Even Abby Flourish gives out those wonderful bookmarks as Christmas gifts."

"But it's forty Galleons!"

"Actually, it's thirty-seven fifty this week on sale, but the materials cost about twelve Sickles and the team color licensing is only another two. Also takes me longer to make brownies or tea cake."

"I don't know. It just feels like you're spoiling me." I gestured around our palatial surroundings and she reddened a little before giving a defiant shrug.

"Well, I'm _trying_ to. You deserve a bit of spoiling, especially after putting up with me."

"What's so odd about you?"

"I get into Beater-bat fights with terrorists and I keep a weird sleep schedule."

"I study creatures with not only the inclination to eat me, but the ability to cook me first. And I sleep on just as odd a schedule when I'm working on a book."

"So we're both odd?" I nodded and Jessie grinned. "Well, you still deserve spoiling. I'm a little disappointed about the murder, but there should be one on the return trip for you. I think you'll have more fun than most people, knowing what you do about plot and such."

"What does everyone mean by 'the murder' on this train? They don't actually kill someone?"

"Well, not permanently."

"Jessie!" She stifled a laugh and explained:

"About the time that the Trans-European Rail really got started, there were a couple of high-profile murders on trains, and a number of novels in the same vein followed. A lot of people started riding the train just in the hope there might be a murder and a mystery about who had done it and a big reveal with the clever detective and such. The novels made it sound really exciting."

"That's…a bit morbid, but I can sort of understand it."

"Yes. Well, the lines started hiring detectives, just because the likelihood of murder seemed so high after all the novels –even though there'd really only been two in real life and both were pretty straightforward cases of 'fellow needed killing.' Then, when there weren't any murders at all, people were disappointed. The line realized that murder was a big draw, so they hired some dramatists to work with the detectives, and on just about every line, there's at least one murder per trip now."

"But it's all play-acting?"

"Yes, like those murder parties that students have. Everyone gets a sealed envelope with what they need to know, and one person is tapped to be the body. Then that person is 'murdered,' sometimes with a potion, sometimes with a Body-Bind and a bit of fake blood –depends on the how-dunnit, and taken to a private car to watch everyone solving it."

"Oh."

"Yeah. It's just a nice little game. They've really gotten complex in the last few decades, too. It used to be everyone'd get a big envelope with their fake identity and everyone'd play all night as somebody fictional, but nowadays they write the murder around real identities. You'd be Charlie Weasley and I'd be Jessie Tickes, and we'd be suspects." She sounded inordinately gleeful at the prospect.

"…This sounds very fun and all, but couldn't it be a grisly way to conceal a real murder? I mean, if everyone assumed it was a jolly game, the train could be in a country without extradition before anyone realized the body was really a body."

Jessie laughed and kissed me.

"You're such a novelist." She leaned back into her side of the luxurious double chaise, without letting go of my hand, and demurely sighed. "Anyway, that's only happened twice."

I spit tea across the car.

"Kidding!" she explained. Before I could reach for a napkin to wipe off the opposite wall, an automatic Cleaning Charm took care of it before our eyes. "There was _one_ political assassination during the Grindelwald war, and the other one, it turned out the person elected body had actually faked his death in the private observation car in an attempt to escape with his mistress. They still re-use that plot at times. I shouldn't scare you, it's very safe."

"Is there at least some kind of security?"

"Very good security, actually. And politically neutral, at that. It took three trips for the Secret Service to manage the assassination, and they got caught before the train got to Munich, too. You-Know-Who could probably ride the Trans-European and survive being elected body."

"Secret Service?"

"Oh, yes, the historical consensus is that the Americans pulled it off. Clumsy blighters, though, they might've gotten away with it if they'd read their Christie."

"…And this doesn't _bother_ you at all?"

"No. Should it?"

"Jessie, you're an elected official and an Order loyalist. _You_ could be a target for assassination."

"By whom? A Knockturn pickpocket? I'm really not as important as everyone makes out. That, and I'd never get picked to be the body." She actually sounded a little regretful at that.

"Why not? Because you're a girl?"

"No, silly! Because I've already _been_ the body, when I was eight. You don't get to do it twice, I don't think." She sighed. "And being the body is awfully fun."

We finished our tea and spent some time playing with the various knobs, dials and gadgets in the stateroom. It was possible to change the view outside to suit your favorite season or time of day, and I don't even want to discuss the possible variations in air conditioning, let alone décor. Jessie also devoted about an hour to organizing and preparing her tools and various bits of kit for the great trial the next day. I knew from experience that there was piteous little I could do to help her with her tools, so I went over some of my notes for the latest book while she squinted critically at pliers and other things I couldn't always name.

"I think I probably should have packed my other sketchbook," she observed nervously at one point. "I mean, I know what I want to do, but I really wish I had some extra paper to hash out the case design." I slid a spare notebook across the tea table to where she was sitting on the floor before the big traveling case.

"Will that do?" I asked.

"Perfectly! You're wonderful!" She leapt up and kissed me on the cheek before joining me on the chaise. In a few moments, we were both happily engaged in our respective, matching notebooks –Jessie sketching out a movement, and me jotting down a half-chapter of dialogue. She closed the traveling case and set it where it made a nice ottoman for the two of us, though after a few minutes she had tucked her ankles up under her skirt in order to have a better angle for sketching. Every so often I would glance over and notice something new –the funny way she stuck out the end of her tongue when she concentrated, the movement's incredible detail…the way she turned the page and drew the same thing, but exploded to show every part, tongue out like a kitten who'd paused mid-lick. Jessie tended to look over her glasses a lot, also, and to hold the drawing out at a distance while switching to 'through' and 'above' the lenses of her specs with the other hand.

She was clever and hardworking and beautiful. I realized that no matter what inspiration struck, there wasn't going to be much more than a half-chapter of dialogue put down that day. I also realized that we were, at last, alone.

"What kind of a watch is it?" I asked.

"Compound chronometer with a gravity-reflex power wind. The little weight here moves on its' axis as the person walks and moves his wrist, which rewinds the spring, so it never needs winding. Also, of course, it'll have some extras I'm adding more to show skill than because anyone would wear such an overpowered piece. How's it look?" She held up a very detailed, nearly incomprehensible pair of drawings.

"Intricate," I replied. "I can tell which part the weight-rewinder thingy is, I think. It's a great drawing." She had used a common Muggle ballpoint, I noticed. Evidently she tended to draw with whatever writing implement came to hand, and her work really didn't suffer for it. The blue ink and the way she layered the shadows actually made the watch look like a cross between engineer's blueprint and designer's etching.

"Well, I have the design in my head…and it'll be a bit more complex than this when it's done. I just wanted to sketch it out once more, you know, in case of nerves…" She unconsciously slipped her hand back into mine again. "I'm scared," she admitted softly.

"I don't blame you."

"It's stupid. You-Know-Who doesn't scare me as much as the Guild trial does right now."

"That's often what nerves are like," I agreed. "One serious anticipation is often all the mind can take without stressful collapse. I'd almost bet you could do anything else you'd ordinarily be terrified of at a time like this, and it wouldn't bother you in the slightest. There's only so much brain we can use for fear, and if your needle's already in the red, you simply run out of it."

Jessie looked at me suddenly and very decidedly.

"That's likely how I keep doing it."

"What, the bits with the Bludger-bat?" I asked her gently.

"Yes." She had the dazed look of someone who's made a major realization and isn't sure what to do or think next.

"Last night? I'll believe it!" I laughed gently. "But what were you nervous about that first time? And that time at the Redferns' shop, when the Death Eaters were in Knockturn?"

Her eyes were a very clear brown when she looked at me like that.

"…Something I don't intend to be scared of now."

"Why? What are you…oh, Jess!" I cursed myself for an idiot. "Because you haven't…"

"Not that. The idea of _that's_ been…well, desirable for some time." It was really fascinating, the range of blushes of which she was capable.

"Then what are you afraid of?"

"The day after." She was deadly calm all of a sudden, despite a shake in her normally-steady hands. "And the day after that. And the next day."

"I'm serious about you," I objected gently.

"And that's the frightening part." She ran a hand through my hair and I caught it in both of mine, drawing it to my lips, and then to my heart. "It isn't that I fear your leaving, or our breaking up…it's the possibility that we…well, _don't_."

"You're scared to commit to someone because of what's happened to everyone who's ever done so in your history?"

"Not the commitment part. I could do that in a-" Jessie suddenly stopped herself, for what reasons I wasn't sure, but I felt my own heart leap. "I…wouldn't have trouble with that part. But the losing you after, or you losing me…I've been so afraid of that, I almost didn't dare keep you in the first place."

"And let's say we don't lose each other? That we survive the war?"

"…What do you mean?"

"I like to imagine a bright, slightly dented-up Diagon, shops remodeling away the war damage, replacement glass going in…roaring business, as you call it, in weddings and baby clothes, like there always is after such turmoil, and I hop out of the Floo at the Leaky Cauldron, back from a run to Romania for a bit of weekend research. I pass Florean's and pick up something for dessert, and then I nip 'round to Redferns' and wave to them as I head between the buildings to back of their shop and yours. Then I skip over the broken step as I come in the back door, smile as I hear you finishing up with a customer, and pop the dessert into the icebox. The bell jingles as you flip the sign around to 'Closed,' and I set my knapsack on the table just before you appear…as strong and bright and beautiful as you look right now, only _mine_ and going to stay that way."

Jessie looked a bit bewildered for a moment and I continued. "We…we wouldn't have to be married, if you didn't want to. But I thought…maybe we could just put the two lives together, as we're starting to do right now, and leave them that way. Forever."

"You'd…you'd put up with living in a tiny apartment over an ancient shop, London winters and my tools bloody everywhere?"

"If you'd put up with my rattling tap writer, trips out to look at dragons every few weeks and Sunday dinners both for and as guests…of course." She let out a little laugh.

"And your nieces and nephews asking Uncle Charlie for a pick-up game of Quidditch over the back lawn," she smiled.

"You said, back at the shop, that you wouldn't mind having your own children?"

"I never considered them much of a possibility before…but if you wanted some, yes, I think I might like that."

"Why wouldn't kids be a possibility? You…you can have them, as far as you know?" That was another notion that hadn't occurred to me. I was surprised that she wasn't offended by the question.

"Far's I know, I should be as good at it as the average witch right now," Jessie shrugged with a smile that went sad about the eyes a moment or two later. "But I've been warned that people in my sort of position, in the kind of situation in which we now find ourselves…well, the Cruciatus curse and many of the other popular nasty ones…there can be side effects."

"So don't get cursed if you can help it, and if it happens, and you can't…we'll just adopt a few war orphans. One problem corrects another, you know."

"You wouldn't mind?" She looked shocked and a little pleased.

"One child's as good as another, long as they're loved and brought up properly. The only reason to have our own would be to get one who looks like the two of us, and even that's not a cast-iron guarantee. I'm told I favor my uncle just as much as my dad, and you take after both sides almost evenly."

"And you wouldn't mind bringing up a child over a city shop?"

"It didn't seem to do you much harm."

"Well, I grew up both in London and Hogsmeade. And it doesn't look like I'll be able to do the same, unless I can buy my father out before he scarpers with his share of the business."

"You'll manage it," I said encouragingly. "You always do. And if the kid needs some country air, well, we'll just take him or her out to the grandparents. My mother wants grandchildren so badly she's managing to get along with Fleur Delacour…and she already likes you."

"Does she know about the two of us…whatever we're doing?"

"I haven't told her, but the twins and Ginny and Bill know, so she likely does. It's best to assume she'll find out anything we do."

"Bill knows?"

"I asked his advice on something not too long ago and the subject came up. He seemed rather pleased. And Ian knows…a fact which continues to puzzle me. I felt certain I was due for at least a lecture."

"He agreed to dispense with it once he saw how happy I was, now that we're…what exactly _are_ we?"

"I'm not sure. 'Dating' seems too frivolous. 'In a relationship' is too non-specific…I'm technically in a business relationship with my publishers, and I feel rather differently about what I have with you."

"Lovers?" I looked at her, startled. "Well, we aren't engaged, and we…well…" Jessie stammered.

"Yes, we do," I said it for her, and she held my hand tightly enough that I understood.

"The only problem with that term is its' connotation. It distinctly implies that we…oh, hell." She suddenly stood and put out a hand to help me up. "Would you be…erm…interested in making it accurate?"

I let her stand there for a second before taking her hand.

"Sure." And then I gave her hand just enough of a tug to pull her on top of me for a proper snog. She let out a startled squeak, but soon I had her in my arms and the two of us really wouldn't have noticed much of anything else. We made it into the bedroom shortly thereafter, and Jessie surprised me by-

"_I can't leave this bit in!" a furiously blushing young man objected. His dark hair ordinarily fell over his glasses, but he had actually taken them off to pinch the bridge of his nose. He was in his late teens, but there was some gray in his hair nevertheless, and he had a studious look to hm._

"_Why not? Which bit is…oh, yes. That bit." Charlie picked up a piece of chocolate biscotti and nibbled it absently. "But it's such a nice bit."_

"_History books do NOT contain that sort of scene, Uncle," the young man explained. "And don't you tell me how many readers are curious to read just that."_

"_Well, they are."_

"_Don't you ever worry about the example you set for other historical memoir-writers?"_

"_I rather thought we were setting a good one. You're the one who complained that the one at school got us all wrong."_

"_The girls thought so, too, but they didn't mean like this!"_

"_Oh, I don't know, dear," a dark-haired woman with too many watches observed. "You can never tell with them. Their mother and I used to read the most scandalously bad novels –is that biscotti?" She took one and bit off the end, chewing thoughtfully. "And it's genuinely historically accurate."_

"_Auntie Jess!" the young man protested, looking a bit strangled._

"_What's wrong?"_

"_It's…it's you two! If we leave it in, everyone in Diagon will…"_

"_Will what?"_

_The young man looked even redder._

"_They'll know what you two get up to."_

_The red-haired man and dark-haired woman looked at each other for a second before bursting into laughter._

"_As if they didn't already."_

"_After all these years, I'd hope they at least assumed."_

"_But…but…think what it'd do to the girls and I. This book comes out, and everyone in the History of Magic O.W.L. and up buys it, because students have to write a paper on something from the period and it's common knowledge the professor's sick and tired of Skeeter debunks and Granger analyses. And then it gets around school that there's …smutty bits in it."_

"_There were smutty bits in the war and I think it's high time professors acknowledged that," the dark-haired woman remarked decidedly. "As if it weren't flagrantly obvious…just count backward from almost any one of those kids' birthdays and you can generally pick out just which battle their parents had an excitingly near shave from."_

"_Auntie!"_

"_What? It's true."_

"_Yes, but think of what kind of pressure that puts on me." The young man seemed to have finally found an excuse that stood a chance of working. "Everyone knows I grew up with my Auntie Jess, and if it comes out that she and my dear uncle were already…well…"_

"_Living in sin?" Charlie asked._

"_I was going to say banging like a box of Bludgers, but there it is," Jessie shrugged. The young man looked especially pained._

"_Look, I already have the reputation of an outrageous upbringing, an unconventional mother figure, to say the least, and the disability doesn't really detract from what some of the graduate-assistant girls expect of me. If it comes out that I grew up in a…a Bohemian love nest, the expectations, well, it's just going to be too much to live up to."_

"…_Well, that's a load of hippogriff toss if ever I heard one. If people assumed other people took after the people who brought them up in that particular area of human activity, we'd be expected to produce at least six…oh, dear." Jessie gave Charlie a frustrated look. "It's entirely unfair of him to be right, isn't it?"_

"_Entirely. We should snog in front of him, he hates that."_

"_Let's!"_

_And they did._

"_Bringing up uncles and aunts is such a chore, I'm almost resentful you haven't given me small cousins. At least then I could farm out some of the work to them," the young man growled in a remarkably Tickesian fashion. He was so busy making excise marks above and below a certain section of manuscript that he missed his uncle's sudden clasp of his aunt's hand. However, instead of the shut eyes and bitten lip that normally followed remarks in that vein, the woman with too many watches gave the redhead a secretive little smile and a second kiss, leaving Charlie more or less utterly gobsmacked._

"_You do know that the next half a chapter isn't going to make sense if the scene in question isn't at least alluded to?" Jessie asked the young man._

"_Well, I've actually been having a bit of trouble with this whole chapter. Isn't it enough to say you and Uncle took the train to Switzerland, have you come back, and then some dialogue about how it went? I mean, it doesn't really have spit or biscuits to do with the war, does it?"_

"_Actually, I think it's a fairly critical establishing section. Your Uncle is given information which leads to the addition of an important player in one of the later sections, the rivalry between our shop and Selney's is set up, which has a lot to do with what happens just after the Ministry falls, oh, yeah, and you're in the bit after. If we go directly from 'left' to 'got back' just before that shock, it doesn't really come across as much of a shock, now, does it?"_

"_Was it a shock, Auntie?" the young man asked, pouring a cup of cocoa and passing it to Jessie._

"_Oh, no, I adopted war orphans by the hundredweight back then. Bulk discount." She took the cocoa and patted the young man's hand. "In all seriousness? I wasn't expecting it. But after about twenty minutes of sheer, undiluted panic, I knew what I had to do and I did it. And then, after about two hours of getting used to matters, I was, and then when the Ministry fell and that arsefaced cow had the brazen nerve to…well, let's just say, thank goodness for dear old Tonks. Do you remember her at all?"_

"_Of course. I can still remember her reading to me and eating pistachio pudding with habanero sauce. Never did understand that one."_

"_Well, she was expecting Teddy, dear. Women get strange cravings when they're…pistachio, you said? That does sound uncommonly horrid with habanero sauce. A dill pickle, though, that might go nicely with…"_

_And she disappeared into the kitchen. The young man stood, puzzled, for a moment, then wheeled on his uncle, who was just coming out of 'gobsmacked' and into 'abnormally good spirits.'_

"_Uncle!"_

"_Yes? Oh, yes, by all means, cut the scene. Don't want to set a precedent, like you said. I mean, supposing my brother Percy wrote a war memoir, he's all about precedent."_

"_Bugger the scene! Aunt Jess is off looking for dill pickles!"_

"_She hates dill pickles."_

"_With a passion. I learned my first curseword from her about dill pickles. What the devil'd you do to her?"_

_And then, with a supremely smug smile, Charlie patted his nephew's arm._

"_Well, you could read the scene."_

It was nearly seven-thirty when we woke up and decided to dress for dinner. The bedroom had two little closet-looking doors on either side of it, which Jessie explained were dressing rooms. I looked into one and found it a riot of floral prints, whereas Jessie found the other full of leather accents and dark paneling.

"Swap?" she asked.

"…Gladly. I don't think I need a little table with a mirror on it."

"I'll go get my traveling case."

"I'll go, too. Mine's still in the living-room-thingy."

"You really aren't used to staterooms, are you?"

"No. How is it you are?"

"Granddad took Ian and I on the train for business rather a lot when we were small. Sometimes he'd take just me, especially once Ian went off to school. I remember hating having to wear a dress for afternoon tea and then a different one for dinner, but Uncle Gard so loved picking them out for me, I never complained to anyone but Ian. And then when my father came back, Granddad planned a trip to the south of France over the school winter break for all of us, with Sarah along, partly to keep an eye on my father and partly because, well…I suppose they felt I needed some kind of female influence. She protested that I was old enough to pick out my own dresses and took me shopping herself, instead of letting Uncle Gard buy my clothes like always. I hated her for it at the moment, but then she helped me pick out one that didn't have ruffles and such. I actually looked a little grown-up in it, and then the two of us went and had butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks –first time I'd ever tried it, it made me hiccup. Ian and his friends came in, because it was a Hogsmeade weekend, and…oh, good heavens. I'd nearly forgotten!"

"That _was_ you!" I remembered. "Ian and the Ravenclaws had lost the game the day before, and we'd made a bet that the losing captain would go up to a strange girl in the Three Broomsticks and buy her a drink!"

"_That_ was what was going on?" Jessie laughed as she tugged the traveling case into the bedroom. The tie of her dressing gown caught on the door and came undone, but she didn't seem to care. "That utter rascal. He cheated!"

"Well, striding up gallantly and asking two apparent strangers if he might buy them a drink, only to have both agree and one to accept a kiss on the hand, we were all very impressed."

"I was ten years old! Didn't start school until the fall after!"

"You didn't look it in that outfit."

"Sarah always did have good taste in clothes," Jessie agreed. "Wouldn't you say?"

I went scarlet and agreed with her. Sarah had excellent taste in clothes.

"I felt like such a pillock, too…we'd made the bet out to be some great ordeal, and Ian just over and did it, easy as a hovering charm. So I did the only thing a Gryffindor could, given the circumstances."

"I did like being asked to dance," Jessie smiled shyly. "And then, of course, Ian had to be such a bloody git, taking me off and leaving you with Sarah."

"Your stepmother was quite the duck about it. I think she was the only one who figured out what was going on."

"And that does explain what she said earlier today." We were getting dressed then, talking through the slatted doors of the dressing rooms. Curiously enough, we could hear each other perfectly.

"What was that?"

"That you were the perfect height for dancing and all the Weasley boys knew how."

"Mum insisted," I laughed. "You were tall for a ten-year-old."

"You have me there, I was. For some reason, I grew in fits and starts, tallest in my year, then shortest next, then back again. And…it may sound a bit precocious…but I did want to dance with you that day." Her tone implied that dancing was not all she had thought of.

"You know, tonight will probably be the first time I get to dance with you properly. I did want to, you know, when you were ten…though if I'd known who you were, or how old, I likely would've talked about school and then patted you on the shoulder, like my school friends did with Ginny back then."

"I would've resented that, yeah."

"Well, I was mainly interested in Quidditch then, and all I knew about what to do with girls at that age was 'chat,' 'dance' and maybe, if I was lucky, 'snog.' I knew about the further options, but I didn't dare do more than wish, really. What were you aware of then?"

"'Chat' and 'dance' I could do, 'snog' I had read about and was interested in, anything else I hadn't yet figured out as anything but 'icky.' Even as it was, I was awfully nervous. I mean, big handsome…was it fifth year? You were so tall, and so obviously one of Ian's Quidditch player rivals…"

"You could tell we were rivals?"

"Ravenclaws of that age wear House colors to Hogsmeade, unless they're some kind of berk. The captains and prefects award colors to students who've done well, which gives them the privilege of wearing them outside the school, and it's also possible to 'strip' colors from a student who dishonors the House. They have to wear something plain until they undo the disgrace somehow. You had a great red-and-gold sweater with a Gryffindor lion on it –either you two were rivals or you'd done something so spectacularly foolish that the 'Claws had dressed you up as a Gryffindor as punishment."

"That is a bizarre custom. Gryffindor doesn't go in for that nonsense."

"Gryffindor also doesn't typically take the House Cup on sheer good behavior points. Ravenclaws are very serious about the self-discipline."

"_Are_ you now?" I satisfied myself that her blush wasn't actually audible, though do I think she dropped a shoe.

"Quite, all innuendo aside. I actually lost colors twice myself."

"Whatever did you do?"

"Once, I tampered with a fellow Ravenclaw's watch so she was late for a detention with Snape. Got her five more in a row, and my Prefect felt I'd been devious and cowardly. I won the colors back by telling the student just what I thought of her in the Common Room and not crying when she punched me in the gut."

"I am so glad I wasn't in Ravenclaw. What was the other one?"

"Tampering with a doorknob. Umbridge had given me detention for fixing the giant clock, so I messed with the doorknob of her room and stranded her in the hall in a towel. Professor Snape knew it was me, but no detention. My fellow Prefects decided that the risk of another student's being punished for my act of revenge was one I shouldn't have taken, and I lost colors for one week. It was a Hogsmeade weekend, so I won them back by deliberately tripping and smashing a horrible desk clock with kittens on the face. Umbridge reckoned someone had greased around her desk, especially when I offered to fix the clock and did it spiffy-quick. Took her half a month to realize what I had done to it, but before she could give me another detention, your brothers made their daring escape and she had too much on her plate. Kind of forgot I was there, really. I wonder if she even remembers yanking me out of the giant clock."

"What did you do?"

"People often don't realize that pictures on clock faces are affected by the movement behind it if there isn't adequate shielding. I removed some, and every two minutes precisely, the kittens would lick their crotches."

"It'd be so hard to prove it, too," I admired the prank. "Didn't they do the same before?"

"Apparently, not in the middle of a meeting with Professor McGonagall. Umbridge is sounding forth about the Gryffindors' attitude and discipline and such, and poor McGonagall's watching the crotch-licking cats in fascinated confusion. 'Do they do anything _else_, Dolores?' she asked, pointing to the kitten clock, you know, as if Umbridge might have accidentally purchased a clock with catly pornography. And then Umbridge noticed it, and the meeting was suddenly over. Professor McGonagall was even decent enough to come and give me detention in her classroom, so Umbridge wouldn't find me until her temper had cooled down. And fifteen points to Ravenclaw for what she termed 'exemplary artwork.'"

"She is a dear old duck of a professor. I should write and let her know how I'm getting on."

"You'll have plenty of time while I'm in the trials tomorrow. Is it strange that I'm not nearly so worried about it now?"

"Well, I suppose it's possible you've run out of blushing capacity for the week. I mean, right after I –nope, you can still do it."

"I'm in a different room! How can you bloody _tell?"_

"You always blush when someone mentions naughty things."

"And you blush whenever anyone _does_ them," she retorted wickedly.

"…You've got me. I match my hair."

"That _is_ fun. I expect I see what the Redferns and Sarah are getting at, with their constant haze of innuendo. You nearly ready?"

"Almost. Bit of difficulty with the tie, I'm not used to the bow variety."

"Out here, then, and I'll do it."

"You can do bow ties?" I asked, picking up and putting on the dinner jacket Ginny had found for me.

"Brother, uncle and grandfather? Of course. I learned neckties before I learned shoelaces."

I stepped out of the little room and almost gasped. Jessie looked very different. It occurred to me that I'd really never seen her in dress robes, that I could recall, and certainly not a dress like the one she was wearing. It was pretty without being especially revealing in terms of skin, and the fabric seemed to have a shimmery look, not quite like dragon scales, but a bit like hippogriff feathers, and it was almost the same clear, light brown as her eyes, but with sort of amber and green accents woven into the cloth. She was just pulling on some plain brown dress shoes that went remarkably well with it.

Jessie looked up at me and noticed my expression. "What?"

"You…look different."

"What? I was wearing a skirt before."

"Dress, now…_different_ dress."

"Well, yes, I was just saying you have to dress different for dinner on the…you look so adorably gobsmacked now."

"I've just…never seen you dressed that way."

"Do I look okay? Sarah said the color looked good, but I wasn't sure." She undid the leather hair-tie and shook her head, which completed her transformation. Jessie's hair is a medium brown, about the color of coffee when you look at it in a spoon, and it was longer than I realized. Even having seen it down not two hours previously, the act of letting it down in my view was still a novel and decidedly sensual act, even if she didn't realize I saw it as such.

And you know something? I got the distinct impression she did, and was as surprised as I.

"It's a very nice dress," I managed, just as she slipped over and did my tie.

I had on plain black tie, although the lapels were wider than they had been the last time I'd worn black tie –a horrible party thrown by one of the dragon compound's biggest sources of funding. When dancing and small talk with the rich ladies and their pompous, dull or both husbands had become too much for me, I'd made it over to the kids' table, where the forthcoming questions were really about dragons and the askers genuinely wanted to know. The compound was really quite lucky in that rich people like their children more than they like alternately boring, talking down to, and on one uncomfortable occasion, propositioning zoologists. I'd actually met my publisher there, and after explaining to his daughter that there was no way whatsoever for a dragon to eat her pet cat in Belfast, as well as giving her advice on last-line prophylaxis (dragons really _are_ revolted by the smell of catnip, so it was beneficial to plant some and let Mistoffelees roll in it as he pleased in more ways than one,) I got the commission to do my first book. It had been a while, obviously.

That had been a hired suit, whereas this one was my sister Ginny's Transfiguration work, and therefore the more likely to be fashionable. It had kind of a late-Thirties revival look to it, just as Jessie's dress would have been perfectly comfortable for selling war bonds or singing to soldiers in. We both looked like escapees from old Muggle movies my mother liked –and it's strange, but I found that a bit comforting. There's always a party in those movies, and apart from a flicker of the lights and a siren during the nightclub scene, nothing bad ever happens at that point in the script.

There's also something very interesting about a costume change. Every time I'd ever seen her since school, Jessie had been in shirts and vests, with the odd leather apron or high-collared shirtwaist and skirt set. Between the clothes and the watches, she tended to look very much like what she was –a female clockmaker. I think part of what helped when she started whacking mad folk with the Beater bat was the fact that the bat itself didn't clash in any way with her outfit. Actually, with the short, pocketed apron she sometimes wore over her trousers and boots, one almost expected it. It even makes sense –take Victorian men's clothes, add ten or so brass, gold and silver watches, cut the shirt a bit differently to account for nature, and garnish with leather. It's a recipe for a look of competence, capability, and just enough anachronism to be interesting.

Put the same competent, capable woman in a late-Thirties dress of the sparkling, found-between-microphone-and-orchestra variety, and…

That was what was different, I realized, as we headed to the door of our stateroom. _Jessie had only one watch._ It was the littlest gold one on her left, her right wrist was bare.

"Erm…did you forget something?" I asked, glancing at her completely nude right wrist. Perhaps that's more of the Victorian –I thought of her wrists as naked when they didn't have watches on.

"No, this is all quite deliberate," Jessie replied. "I've locked the others in the safe. How else do I get the gloves on?"

_She had long gloves._ I would have loosened my tie if she hadn't just gone to the trouble of tying it. "Gloves?" I asked.

"Yes, they're kind of the thing here," she explained, slipping one on and letting it _slink_ –there is no other verb, to her elbow. "Ladies wear gloves and gentlemen wear black tie and everyone feels silly for the first ten minutes, or until someone begins to talk shop. That's just kind of how it is."

"I can see what you mean about a murder not being out of place."

"Yes, you just about expect a Belgian with a moustache or an English lord with a monocle. Music's good, though." I noticed she couldn't quite hide a glance at my attire now and then, nor the slightest and most subtle blush I'd ever seen on her. "You look very handsome, Charlie. Not that you don't normally, but…you just look especially nice." The blush stopped being subtle.

"I think you're the most stunningly beautiful girl on this train, and more than that, you're likely the only one who made her own accessories." I raised her left hand, which now had a glove beneath the small gold watch, and kissed it.

"Ehh, don't be too sure. There are other members of the Chronologie Mechanique, and a few of them are female also." Jessie showed me the chain around her neck. "And my Great-Gran made this one."

"The Chronologie Mechanique's the Guild?"

"That's the European pronunciation, yes. Just means fancy clockmakers. Nothing to be scared of –though, if they ask your opinion on politics, say you're in favor of breaking the diamond cartel, against mountaintop removal and a big fan of carbon lattice synthesis. They'll love you in two minutes."

"…What are those?"

"The only issues they've all agreed on in twenty years."

And with that, we left the stateroom and headed for the Lord car, a spectacularly appointed ballroom that wouldn't have been out of place in any of Mum's movies. At one end, there was a large bandstand where a section of the orchestra was playing light incidental music while the rest appeared and began to prepare, and round dinner tables surrounded the dance floor on two sides, with a staircase and landing to separate. It was wider than it should have been, of course, but that's rather par for trains, and I was surprised to hear us announced as we entered by another elf in a pillowcase –albeit not one with as much gold trim as Izzy elf's.

"Mistress Jamesina Tickes the Fourth of James W. Tickes and Sons and Mr. Charles Weasley!" the little elf called.

"They announce people?" I whispered nervously, aware of how many people had turned to look at us –a substantial proportion, though obviously, not everyone had arrived for the dancing and socializing that preceded dinner. Jessie gave me a bright smile as we descended the staircase and whispered back.

"Of course. That way the waiters know who's who."

"The _waiters?"_

"Anyone else would introduce himself anyway. The waiters are the only ones who wouldn't dare ask, and with food allergies and such being what they are…" It was a surprisingly common-sense explanation.

"I like that they announce you first. It's a nice change, the successful woman first." That got me a sudden bitten lip and flash of nervousness from Jessie. I knew she was sensitive about my calling her 'successful,' so I explained; "Really. I'm pleased to see such gender equality."

"Um…T comes before W, actually."

"…Oh."

"Jamesina Tickes!" a tall, round-bellied older man in the same black tie as every other man in the room called out, stepping forward and around his table. He had an American accent, I couldn't be sure quite from where. "Ah haven't seen you since you were a li'l bitty thing!"

"Mr. Lyon!" Jessie put out a hand to shake, only to look momentarily startled when Mr. Lyon instead raised it to his lip European style.

I seemed to recall a similar look on Ginny's face when someone in Diagon Alley had done the same thing. In certain circles, I understood, the transition from handshakes to hand kisses was a mark that the young lady in question was considered grown up enough to be an object of romantic pursuit. I'm not ashamed to say I immediately suspected Mr. Lyon of being up to no good for a few seconds.

"Look at ya, all grown up and ready to take the test of the masterpiece! What are you, twenty-five years old? That's pretty danged young to be the favorite at five-to-one!"

"She's only twenty, Uncle, now stop teasin'!" a tall, friendly-looking woman interjected, before giving Jessie a big bear hug. "How are ya, Jims? And who's the fella?"

"Gilly, Mr. Lyon, this is Charlie Weasley –a magizoological researcher and author of several books. Charlie, this is Gillian Lyon, vice-president of Lyon et Fils, and her uncle, Beauregard Lyon, whom you might know as the person who developed the floating compass clock face for flying watches. Almost every long-distance flyer in the world owes not getting lost to his patent."

The surname was pronounced more like 'lee-on' than 'lion,' with a bit of Frenchness to it. I took a stab in the dark, remembering something Jessie had mentioned once.

"Yes! Lyon et Fils, that's the company in New Orleans?"

"Fella knows his clocks!" Gillian Lyon grinned as I shook and snogged hands accordingly. "I always say us redheads pick it up faster. You'll be one of the British Weasleys, then?"

"Yes, ma'am," I nodded. An elf brought everyone glasses of champagne.

"My granddad on my mom's side was a Weasley…we think. Later on, once Uncle Beau and Jims are busy with the shop talk, we can discuss genealogy and I'll catch you up on the clock-crowd gossip you might've missed." I glanced to my right and realized the shop talk was already showing signs of ignition –you can tell when clockmakers begin to talk with their hands that friendly chit-chat on mainsprings is imminent. "Must be a li'l _etrange_, room full of clock people, when your thing's fancy critters."

"…I'm getting used to it, I guess."

"I don't suppose you're Charlie Weasley the dragon man, wrote that new book everyone's talkin' bout?"

"I…I didn't think it was popular."

"It _is_, 'specially down home. The paperback jes' came out, what was it, a month ago? My mama already had it in hardcover, owl-ordered UK 'dition, and when the paperback came out back home, she sent me one, but you'll have to pardon me not startin' it yet, bein' as how there's rather more poker on the train than there used to be and I'm not as bored."

I nearly choked on the champagne. Jessie turned and gave me a proud smile.

"He's the one all right, Gilly." I basked in her approval for a moment before 'Uncle Beau' distracted her again.

"Really? Then I'll have to ask for your autograph sometime when we're not all sparkled up for dinner and dancin'. Mama thought 'The Dragons of Tirgoviste' was the best thing she'd read all year, and she'll be plumb tickled to hear we met the fella wrote it."

"I…I'm glad to hear that, ma'am."

"Call me Gilly, darlin', everyone does. How is it you know Jims, by the way? I see you're escortin' her on the train."

Had she somehow seen the passenger list? Did she know we had just booked the one stateroom? I panicked a moment for my…whatever Jessie was to me, before I remembered the train elf's announcing us as we entered the great ballroom.

"Well, we met a few times at school, and she's a very dear friend of my younger brothers –they have shops just opposite each other in Diagon Alley and were in the same year at Hogwarts." How much of our relationship was wise to reveal, I wondered.

"They didn't _quite_ introduce us, though, did they?" Jessie asked suddenly, returning to my side.

"No, they didn't, now that I think of it. Mentioned her very favorably, of course, and they did send her over to have a look at my mother's family clock the weekend I was home from…_oh."_

"_Oh."_ Jessie seemed to have come to the same realization as I. "And the fuss they made afterward. Darn them sometimes."

"These are the Weasley brothers of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, I 'sume?" Gilly asked.

"The very same," Jessie almost growled. "Right little incurable matchmakers, too. Why, I ought to send Kendra Redfern over there with a box of…" She trailed off into unintelligibility and Gilly Lyon's smile grew.

"So you _are_ an item," she inquired, looking thoroughly pleased.

"We are," I confirmed, taking Jessie's hand in mine and relishing her sudden, complete failure to blush. Instead, she nodded with a warm smile and squeezed my hand.

"Some months now," she explained.

"Oh, I _am_ glad to hear that, Jims!" Gilly Lyon was evidently one of those people who took unusual delight in any and all good news, lacked some of the polish of tact, and spoke with a mild accent. I found myself liking her. "And not just because the other four applicants for the masterpiece are eligible young men from prom'nent houses –and some of them with nothing more than prominent house to recommend them, especially Prosser and Selnikov, though of course Deroulede's alright. I always used to bet Uncle Beau that you'd pair off outside the per'fession. Any chance of its' sticking, or is it too soon to call?"

We looked at each other, and either we took too long to turn back and shrug or Gilly Lyon was simply incorrigible, because she chortled and made some remark about imminently collectable winnings and our making a simply adorable couple before being distracted by Uncle Beau.

Then we both got back to the usual blushing.

"She seems nice," I observed.

"Gilly? Oh, she's fun. She'll ask questions about anyone mentioned until she's nailed down a little of their where, who, and connects to who else and how. I think her ultimate goal is to know everyone everywhere, at least by reputation."

"Sounds like a Chocolate Frog card collector."

"She does keep cards; little index ones. I'll bet you coffee she has one filled out for you and a line of update to mine before the night's over."

"That's a bit strange."

"Not really. Gilly has a serious problem remembering faces, but if she has a name and some data to work with, she can usually bluff her way through a party on sheer 'is that so-and-so?' It's a case of hobby corrects disability."

"Nice how minds sometimes work like that."

"That, and she's a bit of a gossip because of it. Not the bad kind, but she will tell a person to his face that a person he's rumored to be interested in is totally wrong for him…and usually why. I'm glad we let her know we're…an item, she called us?"

"We don't normally seem to tell people that."

"Niels Nielsen the Eighth of Nielsen's Ure!" the announcing elf called. I glanced up the staircase and saw a tall blond man with a small, military-looking decoration on his jacket.

"Normally, we're in a country on high alert for terrorism, where your family is well known opposition to the belligerent party and mine is prominent both for my elected office and the age of the firm."

"So it's safe to be open about it here?"

"Maybe not entirely so, but I think we can get away with item-being behavior here that would be risky or lead to problems back home."

"Such as?"

"Paul Etienne Deroulede _fils_, of Clovier & Deroulede!" the announcing elf called. The man in question had brown hair cut much like my brother Bill's and a small black box in his hand, which he slipped into his pocket.

"Well…there are several people who've just arrived whom I know, and I may well be asked to dance once the music goes from tinkly incidental to serious."

"Is this a cutting-in establishment?"

"Not typically. But there's this." Since the conversation with the Lyons, Jessie –and the majority of the women there, I noticed, had been clearance-tagged at the wrist with a little folded bit of crisp red-and-gold cardboard with the Trans-European logo and the tiniest of little pencils. I examined it a bit closer and found that the cardboard had pages inside it.

"…The women are on special?"

"It's a dance card."

"Those are a real thing? I kind of thought they were made up for the kind of movies my mother likes."

"Hans Prosser, of Universum Zeitmechanische Uhrfabrik!" He was a stoutish fellow with dark brown hair and an insignia pin in his lapel.

"The tradition is somewhat out of vogue back home, I'll concede." Jessie eyed the little booklet critically. "_Does_ it look like I'm on special? It does have a bit of the price tag in looks, doesn't it? Pity, really, it's such a neat custom."

"It is? I never understood it. Gentlemen essentially call dibs on certain dances with each lady?"

"Essentially," Jessie continued her critical inspection of the thing. "It's funny. I thought these were the height of elegance and grown-up splendor when I was ten years old. Now that I actually get them, though, they strike me as a bit on the side of 'line up for test-drives, gents, the broom auction starts at four.'"

"I can see the appeal, though. Saving a particular dance for a particular person seems romantic, depending on the dance, and having a paper trail to back it up prevents fights, I guess."

"Why'd there be fights?"

"Vladimir Pavlovich Selnikov of Selnikov Chasovnik Mekhanichna!" the announcing elf called. This young man was almost as tall as Nielsen, but with hair darker than Prosser's and worn almost as long as Deroulede.

I looked over Jessie's shoulder across the room, noticing how all four of the young, male clockmakers just announced were sending glances her way between pleasantries to the other guests.

"There'd be fights."

Jessie looked, then looked back at me bemusedly.

"Why worry about Chasers? You've caught the Snitch."

"...Have I?"

She reddened.

"A few hours ago…you recall it."

"Yes, that was a very good match. Trouble is, you don't win the Cup on one match, usually."

"You do if you're the only club in the league capable of flying, let alone _scoring_." Jessie gave me an arch little look and I half-smiled. "Don't get me wrong. The part of me that thinks dance cards are elegant and likes pretty dresses would be very flattered to think you'd get jealous and somehow fight off the other males like…well…a dragon."

She slipped the little tag off her wrist and showed me a line with a number. "But the sensible part of me would be happy with your calling dibs on this waltz, remembering how little clockmakers usually talk about besides gears, springs and casements, and…well…" Jessie had a shy, nervous look in her eyes, despite the smile below. Then she suddenly snapped out of it and held my hand. "I love you, Charlie. And I don't see anything changing that."

"I love you, too, Jess." I didn't dare snog her, especially as it was more or less obvious we were being watched, though probably not overheard, given the tinkly incidental music's increase in volume. But I held her hand and anyone with a brain could tell we would rather be somewhere else.

"I do have a question, though," Jessie asked as I led her in the general direction of the dance floor. "Whenever you talk about the future, you always say 'we wouldn't have to be married, if I didn't want to.'"

"Yes?"

"Can't see why I wouldn't, actually. Does that change anything?"

I stopped and stared at her, astonished. This went against everything I thought I knew, about Jessie, about her family, about successful businesswomen in general. We were very clearly headed in the direction of a very public, very noticeable display of affection when that damned announcing elf spoke up yet again, but this time with a pair of names we both recognized.

"James Worthing and Sarah Whipkey Tickes, of James W. Tickes and Sons!"

This announcement was followed by a very quiet and ladylike expletive from Jessie.

A/N: The story will continue in the next chapter. Due to sudden requests, a blanket permission to post fanart is hereby issued. If you feel like drawing something from this story, you don't have to ask me before you post it online somewhere...though I'd love to get a link so I can see it. Also, it is somewhat recommendable that interested readers Google the bands 'Abney Park' and 'The Clockwork Quartet' before the next chapter is uploaded. Their music may become...somewhat relevant. That, and I have been told anyone who likes this story will likely enjoy said musicians' work. As always, I can be reached via PM, email, AIM when I'm awake and on it, or via carrier pigeon. .


	28. Some Ribbon

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Some Ribbon

"I didn't know they were coming," I observed, looking up the stairs to Jessie's father and stepmother, who were mingling through the crowd, even as other people, mainly clockmakers, I guessed, greeted them. Jessie had recovered control of her facial expression, but not her tone of voice.

"Me, neither. Father almost _never_ travels." It sounded like an accusation.

What the devil did one say in such a situation? I flashed back to my own mother's etiquette training.

"Your stepmum looks well."

"Mm."

"It must be nice for them to get out. Aren't your twin brothers a bit over two years old?"

"Twenty-seven months, yes." Jessie still seemed absorbed in what couldn't have been an especially friendly thought.

"So…what do we do now?" I asked her nervously. She stopped, realized I was as gobsmacked as she was, and sighed a gentle smile.

"Presumably, we'll try not to die of awkwardness poisoning."

"Should we go say 'hi'?"

"I suspect they're headed in our direction, so yeah, might as well meet halfway."

And so we did. The trouble was that there were a lot of people between us and them, and nearly all of them were interested in getting a few words in.

"Jamesina Tickes!" the young man with the brown ponytail called, stepping through a convenient gap in the crowd and making a sweeping bow. Something about his accent made me cringe slightly –his French made 'Jamesina' sound a lot like 'zhamesine,' completely dropping the last letter, and after a few weeks of Fleur Delacour, well… that, and Jessie also returned his bow with the first curtsy I'd ever seen from someone over twenty years old that wasn't in a movie or play. It had never occurred to me she could do that, and as I glanced around to see if they were being serious, I noticed many of the gentlemen and ladies beginning to bow and curtsy also. The young man took Jessie's hand in his and said something complicated in French, which I couldn't follow, and she laughed prettily.

I decided at once that I resented him.

"Paul, have you met Charles Weasley?" Jessie turned slightly and brought me into the conversation by means of introduction. "Charlie, this is Paul Deroulede…we took the journeyman's test together."

"We also played together as _petits_ and were once punished, as I recall, for a prank in this very ballroom," Paul added, with a smile that waxed nostalgic. "And we 'adn't even done that one. But no, M'sieur, I do not think we 'ave met. You are the zoologist, yes, with the dragons?"

"Yes, I am." Jessie looked pleased with me.

"Mademoiselle Lyon has been generous with the praise for your latest book. Apparently it 'as been rather a joy to her dear mother, who 'as, sadly, not been well. And 'aving met the lady, I concur with the assessment…difficult to please with a book, she is." He exchanged a look with Jessie, who went scarlet.

"You're _not_ going to tell him _that_ story, Paul!"

"But it was one of your greatest triumphs, 'tite soeur! Standing up to ze old lady, insisting that your comic book wasn't garbage and that you would rather _be_ an 'orrible guttersnipe than give it up…such passion at such an age!" Deroulede pressed his hand to his heart –rather over-dramatically, I thought. "Charles, you should have seen 'er. Ten years old, shaking like the leaf and still staring down –well, the worst old baggage you'll ever meet at a clockmakers' gathering!"

He pronounced my name closer to 'sharles' than it should really sound, but he liked Jessie, so maybe he wasn't too bad…nope, I still resented him.

"She wasn't _that_ bad," Jessie sighed sheepishly. "Though they _were_ my mother's comic books she was objecting to, so what else could I have done?"

"The ones Ian showed me?"

"Yep."

"…I am suddenly less pleased to have her as a fan." And I was. Who'd object to comic books when a little girl's departed mother had drawn them? It was plain tactless.

"Yes. If you wanted to make your next book one of the graphic novels, just from spite, I think zat would be entirely fair to Madame Gudule Lyon!" Deroulede laughed.

"Remember when she got after you for not knowing who the Acadians were?"

"Too well!" As Deroulede stifled laughter at the memory, Jessie filled me in on the tale:

"So she tells him, and it turns out the ancestors of the French-speaking folks in New Orleans, the old lady included, were Frenchmen who were expelled from Canada…I don't remember why, but you'd've thought she was personally responsible, from the great fuss she made. Paul hears that, asks what year was _le grande derangement_, which'd be the migration in question, and when she tells him, he just smiles that cheerful little smile and says 'Ah! Then you'll 'ave missed some of French history!' And he proceeds to _catch the old lady up,_ talking without a pause for almost half an hour –and since I was there, too, and she'd just finished telling me ladies don't interrupt, she was _stuck_ there for the entire lecture on guillotines and actresses and God only knows what else…"

"To be fair, I 'adn't 'ad French history yet at the time, beyond the most basic details," Paul explained.

"So he was more or less regaling the old biddy with the plots of 'The Scarlet Pimpernel' and 'Les Miserables' rather than actual history!" Jessie snorted.

"She 'adn't read them, though, so for 'alf an hour, she listened…"

"What _did_ she finally do to make you stop? I forget."

"Excused herself to powder 'er nose and never came back!"

"That's right! And oh, the jokes we made that day about nose powder!" The two of them laughed and I felt my resentment slipping away as a picture of what ten-year-old Jessie must have been like entered my mind's eye. It was a cute picture.

"Ah, 'tite soeur, what times we 'ad!" Deroulede exclaimed, with a grin in my direction. "Did you know, Charles, that Jamesine was the first girl I ever 'ad the nerve to ask for a dance?"

I shook my head and tried to suppress the urge to detest the Frenchman. I'd only had the chance at a few sunsets in parks and on roofs, perhaps ten dinners alone, three movies, maybe four lunches, two trips out for ice cream and exactly one long afternoon on a train with my Jessie. And that damn dirty frog had gotten to _dance_ with her, despite pronouncing her name all French and having longer hair than Bill and looking like…well, like somebody really French! Some latent but extremely British organ in my chest, possibly the homicide gland, was lighting up like I'd eaten too much curry.

"No, I hadn't," I replied. "She did mention there was dancing on the train, though."

"Yes. I recall my Maman was thrilled…until she realized who Jamesine was."

My resentment bubbled over. What was wrong with Jessie that some French gigolo's cow mother would object to her?

"Yeah…it wasn't nearly so impressive once she remembered."

"Remembered what?" I asked. Deroulede grinned.

"Jamesine and I had attended dancing class together, among other things. We attended Chronologie Mechanique affairs with our _pères_ and _grand__pères_, played under the Guild steps as _petites_ and even got into trouble together. Maman has 'ad designs on weddings and grandchildren for some time, so when I solved her little problem of 'ask a girl to dance on the train or else' by the elegant means of a childhood friend…well, she 'ad objections."

"It also didn't help that we were pretty obviously dancing with each other to avoid certain other people."

"You more than me, Jamesine. I 'ad those dreadful orthodontics and was so short then…"

"_You_ were short? We were the same height then!"

"Yes. And you 'ave grown…per'aps three centimeters since, 'tite soeur?" Deroulede grinned, playfully patting her head. He was easily a foot taller than she was now. "Oh, and I saw Ian's match against Italy. Is his wrist better?"

"Much. He says it was a damn dirty game, but not so bad as the match with Bulgaria."

"Bulgaria vs. England was a bloodbath. My date _fainted_ while we were watching." Deroulede frowned playfully at Jessie.

All of a sudden, my resentment began to fade. This was for two reasons. One, Deroulede had mentioned a date who was obviously not Jessie. And, two, I remembered something Fleur Delacour had said about someone called Gabrielle, her petite soeur…which, of course, is French for 'little sister.' Jessie and Deroulede were friends the way she and my brothers were friends.

I was going to have to get used to that. The sudden realization that Jessie, for career reasons, was as one-of-the-boys as our Ginny when it came to work colleagues, well, it made a lot of sense. There just didn't seem to be many women in clockmaking. Of course, this also presented the very obvious threat of competition –not that I had any doubts of her interest in me, more that I wondered how I could possibly compete with someone who, you know, actually knew what the difference between automatic and self-winding was…well, I'd been 'let down gently' before and it was not something I wanted to happen again. Not with her.

"And considering the tabloid press accused you of going out with Viktor Krum, I'm not certain I blame he and Ian," Deroulede continued, to Jessie's horror.

Viktor Krum? My brain boggled. Jessie had dated Krum? I'd been a good player in my school days, but nothing like that…

For her own part, she was sputtering with disgusted incredulity:

"...One date! Almost a _year_ ago, and we spent the whole time discussing Quidditch!"

"Well, no wonder you never owled him back," Deroulede smirked. "You never 'ad the patience for the beautiful game that your brother did…and a mercy for France it is. We could never place better than fourth if England had both of you."

"_Do_ you play, Jess?" I asked her, a little resentful that she'd never played with me, but more hopeful that sometime soon she would. She shrugged and rubbed at the absence of watches on her wrists as if she missed them when on-the-spot.

"Not really. A pickup game here and there…it's the height, you see. I have the most awful vertigo. Unless I have some nice gears and pendulum ratchets to focus on, I just about pass out from heights."

"She catches like the plague and what an arm with the bat!" Deroulede smiled again. "If the game were somehow played on land, she'd be a fine Seeker or Beater…though 'er reach's none too good for a Keeper and she can't Chase for toffee, no offense."

"None taken. I can't aim worth spit, throwing-wise, and neither can Ian, for that matter. Charlie, though, he can catch _and_ throw." Jessie caught my hand in hers and kissed me on the cheek, even as I blushed at her praise.

"Perhaps we could manage a pickup game back of the Guildhaus, roof-the-limit. I'm sure Nils has a broom or two with him and I'm planning to buy a couple in Bern myself. Dibs on Charles, though…I'd need a good Chaser to oppose Selnikov."

"I mainly played Seeker at Hogwarts, actually."

"Even better! Prosser can't Seek to save his life…though, frankly, I'd just as soon rather have Jamesine on my side than him. Since journeyman he's been even more of a bully to apprentices than ever and his toadying's gotten worse."

"_How?"_ Jessie asked, in a tone that implied there were physical limits to how much of an odious trait one could possess, and that when she'd last seen the fellow, he'd been at capacity.

"I dare not imagine. Oh, and you'll want to misplace your dance card when he talks to you, by the way."

"…_No,"_ Jessie looked almost pale.

"I'm afraid so."

She let out a very quiet but decidedly less than ladylike curse. It was one of those phrases which involved an elaborate, ungainly simile, with the unfortunate effect of making both Deroulede and I snort a little with mirth. Jessie glared and crossed her arms.

"Fine. He wants to play that game, I've brought a better deck."

"Actually, Jamesine, I have something I wanted your opinion on," Deroulede announced, pulling the small black box from his pocket. It contained…well, an engagement ring. I'm no authority, but it seemed like a truly remarkably sparkly one. "I made it myself…you remember Juliette?"

"Of course! And I heard you'd been seen with her!" Jessie looked thrilled.

"To my mother's complete disapproval, naturally," the Frenchman sighed, "but she is, as they say, the one…Anyway, if you wanted to really guillotine little Hans' plans, I have all six of the first drafts in my stateroom. You and Charles can help yourselves, and that way, nothing need be said, no conflicts had about the whole thing."

"…Exactly what _is_ going on?" I finally asked.

"…Tell him, Paul," Jessie sighed.

"You didn't?"

"How _would_ I have done?"

"As you British say, bloody 'ell." Deroulede glanced around to be sure we weren't heard. "Jamesine is one of the only girl clocksmiths our age in the Chronologie Mechanique, this I am sure you know?"

"I had heard, yeah."

"She is also among the richest and most successful, yes?" Jessie elbowed him in the ribs and blushed, and I grinned.

"Yes, I know. And I'm proud of her. So these other clockmakers want to ask her out?"

"…Not quite. Perhaps you can understand, how in families which perhaps do not run as much like the watches they make, a father might tell his son just which young lady he is to become engaged to if he wishes to see another promotion or even to remain in the company, without so much as consulting the young lady in question?"

"…You're kidding. That's ridiculous. It's almost nineteen-ninety-six, not seventeen-eighty!"

"_You_ think it's ridiculous?" Jessie asked, a little more sarcastically than one usually heard from her. "You're not the one who had to read Jane Austen for advice starting at the age of nine."

"I'm afraid it's true, Charles. I have been protecting my 'tite soeur from the attentions of such young men as best I could since she stopped wearing the dresses with ruffles on." Deroulede sighed at Jessie, who continued to glare like Norberta the dragon in egg season. "The Guild is a lot of old men who think themselves rather more important than they are, traditions die very hard and not many of them let such notions as love or actual personality enter into their deliberations. Selnikov's shop has suffered since the unrest across his country's border, to say nothing of his somewhat less than perfect skill, so he is under great pressure to marry someone rich, and if possible, skilled, though I doubt his family takes women seriously in that line. Hans Prosser lost his elder brother to disinheritance over a girl old Karl thought unacceptable –Muggleborn _and_ Canadian, so Hans is under a great deal of pressure not only to be the clocksmith and businessman his brother was, but to marry the girl his father has picked out…and, unfortunately, said girl is my friend and…perhaps something more than your friend?"

Jessie said something in French that made Paul Deroulede gasp.

"I didn't know you spoke French, Jess," I remarked, patting her hand. She grinned archly, even as Deroulede appeared to be suffering from some kind of sudden cardiac complaint.

"_Jamesine!"_

"What? S'true."

"…Well, you can't just _say_ so! You'll never be believed and anyway, your _parents_ are 'ere tonight!"

"Why wouldn't I be believed?" Jessie cried, looking genuinely outraged. Paul sighed and raised an eyebrow.

"You're British and you're a Tickes. At most, it would look like a clever ploy to hold off suitors. _I_ can believe it, of course, but I know you a little better than those old men do. They still think any girl with a profession and spectacles is a librarian."

"Some fancy kind of librarians," I mumbled, trying to suppress a bit of laughter. Even as awful as the predicament sounded, there was something inherently humorous about the whole thing. I knew full well how proper and spinsteresque Jessie appeared to people who didn't know her well, but I also knew the truth. I also knew a very easy way to solve the problem.

"Librarians are actually among the most dirty-minded people in the world," Jessie growled. _"And_ the most dangerous to offend."

"C'est vrai, 'tite soeur." Deroulede turned to me and whispered, out of Jessie's hearing. "May I suggest, therefore, that you, Charles, make a point to be more or less constantly at Jamesine's side this evening?"

"Meant to, anyway."

"Have you spoken with her father already, or are matters not so far?"

"Spoken with…_huh?"_ I still didn't understand how trade families worked sometimes.

"You British. Well, even if matters are not so serious, better for them to be thought serious now and later allow the specter of potential reputation to let Jamesine choose for herself."

"…Why doesn't she just say 'no' to these clowns?"

"She likely will. Likely has. But the opinion of a woman…well…" Deroulede sighed. "This is a very old sort of Europe we're dealing with. My mother objects to _ma belle_ Juliette because she isn't of a trade family and because she is from Montmartre. Likely Jamesine's grandfather fails to object to you only because his Maman was Jamesine the Auror and a streak of the Femme Moderne runs in that family. To you, Jamesine's opinion is the beginning and the end of the story. To them…it is perhaps a footnote in chapter twelve, next to the page number."

"To hell with it. I have better things to worry about than that bunch of chauvinist shitbiscuits," Jessie growled, thoroughly destroying the Jane Austen atmosphere and sending me into a fit of mirth.

"Damn it, Jamesine, we are in the midst of the comedy of manners, the damsel in distress, the most romantic of entanglements –and you are not even letting poor Charles enjoy rescuing you!"

"I'm enjoying it!" I managed to gasp between giggles. It was all so absurd.

"You both are making of this the farce! I will never understand the British need for everything to be the flying circus and the restaurant full of Spam! Yes, it is perhaps silly to us, but at least we could be enjoying the _tension dramatique!_ You cannot even permit my poor romantic soul a moment to savor the elegance of the forbidden lover holding off the undesirable _avec_ determined fools without calling them the shitbiscuit! That is not even a _word_, Jamesine!"

We were both dying with laughter at this point, and after a look or two, Paul cracked up right along with us. Say what you will about antiquated social entanglements, they really don't stand up to modern women or their…erm…vocabulary.

Shortly thereafter, I managed to change the subject to that of Deroulede's intended. Juliette Devereaux worked in a Montmartre cabaret, hence most of Mme. Deroulede's objections, but Paul remained effusive and detailed in his praise of his prospective fiancée.

"Such a face, Charles, the gods could make only in flesh, for not even marble in the sun could be so warm! Her smile, it is like her work…bright and full of the cheer one moment, cold and aloof the next! She is an _artist_, Charles…like your Jamesine with the clock, but of the stage! Every Friday night, I leave my shop and I go to worship at the temple of her brilliance. Everyone loves her, but only I and her _chaton_ Toulouse have her love in return."

"Chaton is…kitten?"

"_Mais oui!_ I rescued him from the shelter and presented him to Juliette the day she changed lodgings and was at last allowed to have a pet of her own. His _maman chat_ was dead, so the shelter intended to put him to death, but I know a little of _chatons_, and it was not too hard to nurse him with the bottle, dreaming of the day he would belong to my love! She would visit and praise my patience with the tiny _chat_, never realizing I was saving his life to be hers…and when I bought the apartment building and moved her from the garret to the third-floor suite, she never knew it was me!"

"That's adorable!" I remarked admiringly. "So, she's on the stage?"

"_Non_, her _art_ is on the stage."

"…I don't understand. Does she sing, or dance…"

Paul gave me a blank look.

"She is the lighting designer and the manager of the stage." He sighed again. "Where every other artist works only in body or voice, Juliette, she works in light and time…she is beauty _and_ brilliance."

"How did you meet?"

"I was backstage, repairing the clock, when she asked if I knew anything about lever arms. _Naturelment_, I do, so I assisted her with the repair of the fly system, and when we had finished, I was already in love with her. She has the wit and the soul of art, but also the beauty and the generous spirit…so, of course, I came back to look for more that I could help her repair. We worked for months, laughing and passing tools to each other, until all was fixed so well I could not think what I would do. I was just about to bribe a dancer to break something when Juliette invited me back just for the fun of it…and we have been nearly inseparable since."

"Aww!" I no longer resented Paul. He was simply a second, French older brother of Jessie's, as far as anyone could tell. "That's so sweet!"

"And it actually does remind me…do you suppose, Paul, that there's any chance of Juliette's company having perhaps a modest UK tour this year –or next, when things are a bit safer?"

"I suppose I could bring it up to the other share'olders."

"…You _didn't_."

"Only fifty-eight percent, Jamesine." Paul looked sheepish.

"How did you explain buying a cabaret to your mother?"

"I didn't. It was after I bought my shop…and obtained a modest equity line of credit at Lafitte's."

"You didn't!"

"I paid it off in two months! The cabaret was being run into the ground by its' management, but with my former governess in charge of the house, it became rather more profitable."

"You put _Ingrid_ in charge of the house?"

"_Naturelment."_

"…I stand corrected forever on investment strategy. Clearly, simple property acquisition is nothing compared to setting a great Brunhilde queen Viking of an ex-governess on presumably innocent bartenders and chorus girls. You _do_ know those Muggle comic books weren't meant to be educational in that way?"

"That _is_ where I got the idea, yes. Running my nursery and then that of my petite cousins, well, considering the behavior of drunks as compared to _enfants_, I assumed Ingrid would simply take care of it."

"This is what happens when I send over _'Asterix,'_ I'm never going to trust you with _'Batman.'_"

"I love Batman! Juliette showed me the film version."

"An act for which she will assuredly answer someday at The Hague."

Normally I'd feel a bit lost listening to old friends catch up, but Paul's face was so expressive and Jessie's –well, disparaging observations, perhaps we could call them, so detailed, I was able to understand pretty easily what was going on as they bantered back and forth. Juliette was a sweet, Muggle-born girl, self-made and very talented, if not precisely what one would consider 'well-off' financially. She also probably got a little tired sometimes of Paul's constant attempts to rescue her, hence his failure to tell her that he now owned a majority of shares in her place of employment. Jessie insisted that he couldn't make high-handed inroads into someone's life that way, even for the positive, without at least telling them.

"But she would be so upset," Paul sighed. "I only wanted to 'elp, and the theatre was to be closed if it wasn't back in the black by fall."

"And if you'd said to her, 'Juliette, this theatre looks like an amazing investment opportunity and I really need to diversify my portfolio –how about I buy in? I'll put in some more responsive management, so your life'll be easier, and it'll ultimately help me from a business perspective. Wouldn't that just be shiny for both of us?' If you had, she'd likely have discussed it and debated and insisted that your new management not show any favoritism, but she'd have agreed to share a business opportunity that was mutually positive and you'd be in the position to help her without it feeling like you swept in and put training wheels on the little scooter-thing of her career for her!"

"Says the woman who bought the premises of 'er friends' shop rather than see them evicted."

Jessie went white.

"How do you know about that?"

"Common knowledge, I guess. 'Eard it from a goblin at Lafitte's this morning."

"It was an emergency and I intended to –there wasn't _time_ to ask them! And I'll need the property to borrow against with the political situation. It's _not_ charity!"

"So maybe, the saying, something of pots and kettles?"

"Friends are one thing. Lovers are another," Jessie growled. "How can you love someone who towers above you and just swoops in like a fairy tale to make things all better? You'd never know if they really loved you or just wanted a project!"

"And I suppose the fact that Madame Lyon's rave review of Charles' book was, how you say, the coincidence?"

"…Review?" I asked.

"Madame Gudule Lyon, despite being a complete Philistine about comic books, she is the chief reviewer for the second-largest newspaper in America. I assumed you knew," Paul explained casually as Jessie's hands began to shake. "She was sent a copy of your latest book four days ago, devoured it in a night and published a half-page five-star review above the fold, front of the Arts and Leaders section, praising you as the cleverest young author of the year. I understand there was also a photograph."

I turned to look at Jessie, amazed. It had seemed weird that I had gotten a sudden and larger-than-usual royalty check –a rave review would certainly explain an increase in purchases. But Jessie had insisted she hadn't contacted her great-uncle in publishing…

…And she had been awfully specific in saying whom she had not contacted, for that matter. Also a little too swift to insist I had gotten the check on my own merits.

"Jessie?" I asked. She was blinking a little too fast and not really looking me in the eye.

"Charlie…I didn't. If you asked me to, I would in two seconds. But without asking, or getting your permission to interfere…I wouldn't. I didn't. It'd be a betrayal of trust, even if it was well-meant."

I moved a little closer, caught her shaking hand into mine, and looked her right in the eyes. Clear, light brown eyes, behind glasses a little too plain for a dress and a figure like hers. A librarian's face on a…a _politician's_ body…but still with those same callused, capable hands. Who was she, really, this clockmaker?

She blinked for a second and I realized the glances away were more likely to be the avoidance of tears than attempted deceit. I felt her wrist and she closed her eyes tight –yes. She was telling me the truth. And I knew why her hands were shaking.

"I believe you, Jess."

And in less time than I could possibly tell it, she absolutely and completely destroyed any hopes of a Jane Austen-style arranged _anything_ for the pliers-holding hands of Europe. She didn't cry, though I think it was a very close margin. I found myself being snogged and snogging back with a sudden, desperate passion that was probably not the sort of thing anyone expected in a ballroom. But that was okay. Anyone who noticed was at least polite enough not to do anything but smile or gasp and scurry off to gossip a bit –and who honestly cared at a time like that?

"…So that is how to handle it, then?" Paul inquired, pulling a folded document from his coat. "Two documents, Jamesine –the first a letter to you explaining my decision to invest in the cabaret and asking your advice on what to tell Juliette, as I do not have time to ask her before I must act –I'll need some kind of British-postmarked reply, as the carbon will have to be adequate for my beloved to be made to stumble upon." He then took on the brave, get-it-over-quick look of the penitent. "And the second, a registered mail receipt for one book, received by Madame Lyon and sent by what appears to be an anonymous sender, but which a cursory inspection of the handwriting will reveal to be-"

"You!" Jessie gasped.

"_Naturelment_. You can continue to trust her, Charles. I'm sorry for the deceit, but isn't it splendid to know you really did earn that grand review? Madame Lyon would have never read it had it come any other way but anonymously –it would have been a positive lie of a review from Jamesine, a negative one from me, but the mystery of the anonymous sender, ah! She simply _'a__d_ to read it! It was only after, when she loved it so and demanded more, that she had Mademoiselle Gilly trace my owl and the jig, as you British say, was up."

"You…" Jessie glared even as Paul moved closer and put an arm over each of our shoulders.

"Needed to know what you would do in my position. You do 'appen to be right on a frequent basis, Jamesine, but I never know if what you would advise me to do is what you would do yourself. And now that I know, I can apologize, you and Charles can per'aps forgive me for that terrible scare just now –though, to be fair, you two do handle stress in a fashion one rarely associates with your nationality- and everyone can be friends again!" He clutched our hands and tilted his head with what passed, among the French, for an ingratiating smile.

There was a sudden squashy, splintery noise and Paul's eyes got very wide. Then Jessie unclenched her hand.

"_Now_ we can be friends again."

"…I deserved 'zat," Paul managed, in a peculiar froggy falsetto. I didn't look at his hand, but I knew my girlfriend well enough to know that at least three bones had been rather suddenly and painfully dislocated, if not broken.

"Yeah. And you won't be after messin' about with my love life now?" Jessie asked, that slightest of Irish lilts getting into her voice, as it tended to do when she was tense.

"As the raven says, nevermore!"

"C'est magnifique. Put some ice on that."

"I find myself pitying You-Know-'oo, if the Mayor of London has a grip like '_zat!"_ Paul shook out his abused fingers. "And the masterpiece tomorrow…"

"Mayor of London?"

"Jamesine, do you follow _nothing_ in your 'omeland?"

"You keep one more secret I don't know and I'll-"

"-Do something 'orrible to me, I know. Rumor 'as it that what with the Scrimgeour administration neither standing up for the common witch nor doing much to prevent _terrorisme_, that there may be a special election to place a Lord Mayor of London in control of Diagon Alley and surrounding area." Paul shrugged. "Can I 'elp it my spies are better than yours?"

"Bloody hell," Jessie sighed, knocking back a delicate flute-full of champagne as if it were water.

"Considering you're the front-running candidate, I assumed you'd know."

"That could be interesting, Jess. You'd make a good Lord Mayor," I observed.

"Would not."

"You 'ave the 'earts of the people," Deroulede pointed out.

"And you're good at speeches and organizing," I agreed.

"British don't use _le guillotine_ in their politics." We both gave Deroulede a look and he shrugged before Jessie began one of her panicky little rants of rationalization.

"I'm also fifteen years younger than the youngest person ever elected to the office, I'd be literally the third woman and I don't know if either of you have realized this, but I'm twenty years old, have perilously little besides a Hogwarts education and a small shop to recommend me and, even if I were old enough and smart enough _and_ tough enough, there's still the not inconsiderable fact that the _last_ Lord Mayor to stand up to You-Know-Who, not to put too fine a point on it, _died_ less than a month into his first term! Forgive me if this idea holds less allure than being elected Miss Hogsmeade 1996!"

"But you'd look so adorable in the chain," Deroulede sighed.

"And so cute in the box," Jessie growled.

"I think she's right. It's too dangerous," I agreed. "It's not fair they want so much of you, Jess. You've already gotten into a fight with Bellatrix bloody Lestrange and lived, I don't want to test your luck."

"But if there's nobody else, what am I supposed to do? Let London burn while I eat cupcakes and drink champagne?"

"There are cupcakes?" Paul looked around for a train-elf.

"I don't want you to get hurt, Jessie. We've only just…well, you and I haven't had much time. If you were, I d'know, fifty, it'd be one thing, but…"

"And the people who'll never live to be fifty if I don't?"

Bugger. Her damned sense of duty. It was like dating someone out of Gilbert and Sullivan sometimes, and I said so. Deroulede then proceeded to quote a choice passage from 'Ruddigore,' which I recognized, and we were just finally making friends when Jessie glared holes in each of us.

"Well," I sighed, "if you _must_, get the Redferns to serve in your cabinet and I'll make some of my old school friends help with security."

"And you really should have some dueling lessons," a voice remarked. "I've thought so for years. Siobhan would have insisted if she were here."

It was Sarah Tickes, and at her side was the quiet James. Jessie smiled slightly, nervously, then seemed to warm up as the shorter woman hugged her. I wondered if they had seen the snog and felt a bit tense myself.

"Father?" Jessie half-greeted, half-asked, holding out a hand as if not certain what gesture was appropriate under the circumstances. James tugged her in for a brief hug and gave what passed for a smile, from him.

"You look very well, Jamesina," he observed with a nod. I noticed the smile didn't reach his eyes, but there again, they never had, at least in my experience. "Like your mother," he sighed, and Sarah held his left hand tightly.

The man was clearly, blatantly a depression victim. I'd never seen one so bad outside of St. Mungo's –but at the same time, he did have a straight back, a clear eye and the look of someone determined to get through something terrible no matter how much it hurt. Jessie had that look the night her broken jaw had been spelled shut, and it was interesting to really get a good idea of in what ways she favored her dad for looks.

"Thank you," Jessie replied gently. Something had changed –maybe the talk with her stepmother that morning? She still looked edgy, as if unsure who this father-resembling creature was. "You remember Charlie Weasley, and Paul Deroulede?"

"Of course. You two played together as children…and isn't Mr. Weasley the fellow who was at the shop that night after the…erm, scuffle?"

"The very same."

"Rumor has it that they're dating, dear," Sarah observed. "Now might be a humorous time to get a bit bristly and ask the redhead about his intentions. Maybe the two of you might even argue a bit and undo your ties."

We both looked at her, as did Jessie, though Deroulede decided at that moment to develop a passionate interest in the smell of handkerchief starch. By the sound of it, starch made him a bit snorty.

"Dating Jamesina?" James Tickes inquired.

"Yes, sir," I replied, answering with as little tremor as I dared. Who knew what a madman might do? "By your leave, sir, and hers," I added, since it seemed an appropriately Austen-ish clockmakers' guild sentiment.

"Oh, she'll date whoever she pleases. I like you better than the Quidditch lad. Eyebrows like garden shrubs. _You_ can write, and knowing our Jims' taste for books, maybe you can keep her busy. That, and your research should be absorbing enough to keep you from minding her work hours." He seemed almost normal for a moment. "Siobhan tolerated me pretty well in that way, but Sarah has opinions…"

"The twins help," Sarah smiled. "No loosened ties, though? Darn." Jessie gave her a look normally reserved for a smutty Redfern comment and the little woman grinned. "Opinions, he called them."

And with that, the two women shared a bit of a laugh, like old friends or full relatives.

It looked like how Mum and Ginny would meet sometimes, and I wondered what had transpired to change their relationship –or if anything actually had. The Tickes clan was so bizarre sometimes compared to the families I knew, I was never really sure what to make of them.

What happened next, though, was quite startling.

"How's the shop been this week?" James asked.

"Fine." Jessie was still staring at her father as if he'd grown another head. Sarah leaned over and whispered something in her ear that made her eyes widen and then narrow suspiciously. "No."

"Yes, actually…it's been a more or less ongoing experiment," James confirmed. "Sudden breakthrough when Sarah doubled up the…well, she was very insistent about results, and…it's very strange, I expect."

"How? Why?" Jessie had a horrible look, like someone betrayed.

I had a vague idea of what she must be feeling. Twenty years of a distant, never-quite-normal father, then suddenly a hug and a how's-the-shop…it must have been bizarre. I half suspected her Uncle Gard had swiped a bit of his brother's hair and Polyjuiced up for the occasion.

"Well…" James lowered his voice, noticing that a few people were glancing in their direction. "It's Muggle stuff. Sarah developed a combination of a few things that works fairly well, for short periods. The side effects…are frankly dreadful. But I wanted to…Jamesina, you're all grown up. Sitting the masterpiece." There was pain in James Tickes' voice, and especially in his eyes.

I realized his beard was newly trimmed and his hair much better cut than the night at Jessie's shop. What had Sarah Tickes done to him?

"Yes. And preparing to buy you out of the business." Jessie's tone was icy and her jaw set. "Unless you have a better reason than You-Know-Who to turn coward and run to America."

James stiffened and returned the look.

"Such as a branch franchise in New York allowing us a tariff-free crack at American mineral auctions?" Jessie's eyes widened. "A third shop would also be a nice place for Rob or Dave to take over when they're grown, considering Diagon's yours and Gard is unlikely to give up Hogsmeade anytime soon. More importantly, a business with American holdings is subject to international Floo regulations, not British."

"Thus creating a nice little Ministry-immune causeway, should anyone need a quick route out of London," Sarah remarked blithely. "Charles, dear! How are you liking the Trans-European!" she interrupted, drawing me into the conversation by both hands.

"Fine, ma'am. It's very nice." Mr. Tickes turned to me.

"Wouldn't you agree, Weasley, that a fast, legally unencumbered route from the Diagon Alley shop to New York City might prove, oh, a bit of an asset to a Potterist politician's base?"

"It would depend on how unencumbered, but assuming the Ministry doesn't know it's there, yes, that could be quite useful," I agreed. Jessie shot me a venomous look and I shrugged. "Underground railroad, what?"

"I may not be much of a father, Jamesina, but I'm still your colleague," James continued. "And, not to put too fine a point on it, but the firm really couldn't survive your loss, not without at least an eighteen-year decline. So I'm pulling rank and setting up a small safety net for a worst-case scenario." He drew himself up to his full height and I knew the Tickes Business Rules applied. "I know, I know, you don't need to be bailed out like some coward, et cetera. And I know you'll probably run refugees, weapons or both with it, you're just that sort of a stubborn bint, but at least I'll be able to sleep a bit better at night knowing you _could_ escape."

"…How much of a cost reduction are we looking at, with the tariffs gone?"

"Ten percent."

"Is that really enough to set up a decent shop? I would assume you'd need at least forty percent of the Hogsmeade capital just for the building."

"Harrowby Jones is retiring and he hasn't an apprentice –and I quote, 'whom he would piss on, were they on fire.' It took what was left of my retirement fund, but I've bought his place in Manhattan."

"Without the Firm's approval?" Jessie tutted disapprovingly, but her smile was coming back. "What sort of a mortgage rate?"

"Terrible. Point-six."

"I'm assuming it's about the same as the Hogsmeade shop's full value?"

"Actually, about twenty thousand less." Jessie's eyebrows went up and James grinned. "Old Jonesy had a rather remarkable gambling marker, and Sarah here called it in."

"Well, we shall just have to censure her at the quarterly meeting, won't we?" Jessie appeared to be doing some rapid calculations in her head. "Can you afford point-four to me if I pay out half the value on the note?"

"Absolutely. For shares or percent?"

"Shares. Point-four should, at the very least, let Rob and Dave buy me out by the time they want to start families. And something tells me I'll want the steady paybacks, if postwar recession is the sort of beast I expect it to be. Best to diversify, try to hedge one's bets."

"You take after your Granddad," James observed with a wry grin, and I assumed he meant in the area of business sense.

"I ought to. Apprenticed at six and full-time at sixteen, what do you expect?"

"Well, you might have stayed in Hogsmeade a bit longer, but considering what went on with the old man's health, I'm glad you were where you were. That, and it's time Diagon had some decent bachelors in politics. If there isn't someone to shut the old biddies up when they whinge for someone to 'think of the children,' we'll never get anything done."

"Says the father of four," Sarah snarked, catching a champagne glass off an elf's tray and sipping at it. I noticed she didn't take one for James, though Jessie had given me one awhile ago. "But he is right, Jims, you do need a bachelor's opinion to smooth out the roadblocks of middle-class morality."

"I love how you Tickes make no distinction between the male and the female bachelor," Deroulede remarked. "It is so different from my family."

"Is there one?" Jessie and Sarah asked in almost perfect unison.

"Well, apart from the much lower risk of Gard or I turning up pregnant, not really," James Tickes laughed, accepting a small glass of what was probably ginger ale in a champagne glass from an elf. (There were red napkins on the trays of champagne and green on the tray from which his drink had come, which, I remembered, indicated non-alcoholic drinks at the most formal wizard parties.) I choked on my champagne just as Jessie had what sounded like a sneeze done backwards. Sarah Tickes barely restrained a snort and James tilted his head mildly. "Picturing Gard in maternity attire, eh? Horrible mental picture, think about cats instead."

Whatever he was taking for the depression, it clearly had some effect on his perception –that, or James Tickes the tenth was one of those fathers who will sooner decorate the elephant in the room with a tasteful antimacassar than acknowledge the existence of any potential innuendo as re: their daughters. My own father has some of that tendency.

"Speaking of cats, how's Quintus?" Jessie asked.

"Still a ball of affectionate, lazy fluff," James replied. "Dave pulled his tail the other day and got hissed at, and quite rightly, so we slipped the old boy a bit of tuna to make up for it."

"Some cats would scratch at twin two-year-olds, but not Quintus," Sarah agreed. "He still has that tendency to steal the afghan off the couch and make a nest in it, but lately the boys have begun building the blanketty nest _for_ him and saying 'kitty naptime!' when they've finished, at which point Quint struts in like a king and inspects their work. They even use cushions in their kitty-nest construction."

"Sometimes he kneads at it a bit before lying down, but their work is usually satisfactory," James confirmed. "Now, if we can just convince him to potty-train them next..."

"Bad idea. I came home from my Women's Institute do and found the boys, diapers off, trying to do leavings in Quintus' box."

"Who was watching them?" Jessie cried.

"Your grandfather. Said the box was fresh clean and maybe they'd learn something. I sometimes worry his mind's going, but it's actually just the plain devilment he's always been up to. He gave you a cigar once when you were four," James recalled, a bit surprisingly, given what I'd been told about his mental health at that point. "To this day, he boasts of doing it, too."

"Well, to be fair, I never could bring myself to take up smoking after that, so maybe it was all for the best."

"You aren't missing much," I agreed. "I tried to smoke a pipe once and was sick all over my tentmate's bed."

"Was that in Romania, then?" James asked.

"Yes. I was sharing a tent with a pipe-smoker, and I thought it might help make the smell a bit more endurable."

"I never could manage a pipe, either, but I don't mind a cigar now and again," Deroulede shrugged. "Gives you something to do in the drawing room after meals."

"And it does make a fine excuse to wear a smoking jacket," James agreed. "I inherited one that Sarah thinks I look clever in, but if I actually use it as intended, she complains of the smell."

"You could just sip your brandy in the jacket. That doesn't make you reek of burnt leaves and man-gossip," Sarah retorted gently.

"I find that nobody takes me seriously in drawing rooms if I don't have that upsettingly large old pipe of Granddad's in my teeth or hand," Jessie smirked. "Of course, nobody ever sees me light it."

"Well, if the old boys' club wouldn't insist on doing business there, they wouldn't have to feel bested when us girls best them at bad habits. I've acquired rather a taste for their cognacs and such." Sarah took a sip of her champagne and then squinted at it as if accusing it of being entirely too mincing and delicate. "At least there's a _point_ to them."

"Better than those fruity cocktails they serve at the less formal affairs," James pulled a face. "Don't know why, but I got a worse head from one little drink out of a coconut on a Guild do in St. Tropez than a five-pint bender at the Hog's Head when I was seventeen."

"Is _that_ why you informed me, at ten years old, that nobody sensible ever accepted a drink in a coconut?" Jessie asked.

"In the haze of nausea from a stomach flu, yes. Even when I'd been sick thrice in a morning, I still recalled the coconut with trepidation and dread. I think it was in 1976 I had the damned thing, but the memory's still very sobering."

"What was your worst drink?" Sarah asked me.

"I once had a glass of wine at an allegedly vampire-owned tourist trap of a castle near Tirgoviste," I explained. "It tasted like copper shavings and I was sick in a box of wooden stakes."

"Was it blood wine or something awfully awful?" Jessie asked excitedly.

"No, just improperly corked and chilled Australian shiraz. They must have let the kangaroos crush the grapes." That seemed to amuse the group.

"I've actually 'ad some very good Australian wines –but there have also been some that made me want to rabbit-proof my tongue afterward." Paul sighed. "I think my worst drink was the time I tried cheap absinthe on summer 'oliday."

"Does it really make you hallucinate?"

"This didn't. I've since had better, but all the mystique and style in the world does not change the fact that a cup of black jelly beans in vodka is roughly the same flavor experience. Clearly, there are some things for which the _bon marché_ option is worse than going without."

"Has anyone ever tried a drink called an Irish Car Bomb?" Sarah asked. When we shook our heads, she added, simply, "Don't."

"Siobhan loved the most awful pints of black stout," James reminisced, a tightness in his jaw even as he smiled at the memory. "You could cast a Lumos with your wand and hold it under the glass, but to look down, the light wouldn't be visible. It was like watching someone drink ink with brown fluffy foam on top."

"And if a tourist ordered American beer, she'd snort so hard, I swore she had stout up the nose one time."

"American beer is pretty awful," Deroulede agreed.

"I know I prefer Irish stout," Jessie agreed. "But what's in the car bomb drink?" Sarah and James described it briefly, including the late Siobhan's seemingly endless amusement with anyone who, say, passed out after half of one. It seemed that Sarah certainly had, at a hen party long ago and in open spite of the fact that Siobhan had been gone for years, the memory was enough not to let the earthy little soul live it down.

"She'd be very proud of you, Jims," Jessie's father managed to stammer out. He was still very clearly not right, but he was making a valiant try. Jessie gave his hand a squeeze, not in the bone-cracking way, but enough that I could see an Understanding forming between the two.

"And not just for taking after her in a taste for stout," Sarah added. "It's past time you got to know more about what your mum was like, occasional boozy anecdotes, Quidditch scores and all. I have a few of her things that it's time you had, stories you really deserve to hear…and since we'll have the week-end after the masterpiece…"

"I'd like that very much, yes."

"There's also something else," James took a battered little leather-bound address book from his coat pocket. "I have the address of your grandfather, if you wanted to write or visit him after the masterpiece."

"But I know where Granddad lives. With you."

"…Your _other_ grandfather, Jims. Samuel McArran. He runs a jewelry shop in Belfast."

And it was at that moment, with Jessie looking all pale and her champagne glass failing to shatter in her hand only by virtue of Deroulede's whispered spell that I finally appreciated how lucky I was in terms of my family.

I also made a decision in the next few moments, as Jessie peppered her parents with questions and we all sat down to eat at the same table. That nervous blink to avoid tears and the shake of her hands told me how hard she was taking this sudden surprise, no matter how happy things ended, but she was still handling it gracefully and with that watchspring strength that let her take on all comers until she literally ran down and collapsed into bed or worse.

I decided that anyone that strong under pressure certainly could do with someone to let the tension go slack with, someone who'd wind her back up when things became too much. Someone, I thought, to keep her from snapping apart and losing gears everywhere.

And I wanted the job, badly. The question was, did she want me nearly as much as I needed her?

So it was then that I knew for good and all, sooner or later, what and how I would have to ask.

"Attention!" a train-elf announced from just near the bandstand. "Meine Damen und Herren, mesdames et messieurs, ladies and gentlemen, attention s'il vous plait!" I turned in my chair to see Izzy making the announcement. "It is my unpleasant duty to report that we are experiencing some unusual bad weather, and as such, there may be some lateral turbulence as the train enters the mountains." There were some gasps of confusion and disappointment at that. "We must request that the dancing be postponed until additional charms have been activated by the brakemen; however, to encourage this, our chefs have taken the liberty of preparing a more than usually elaborate dessert course." Little menus appeared suddenly next to everyone's larger one with a 'pop!' and Izzy got a round of applause for it. "We apologize for the inconvenience, and as soon as the problem is fixed, the bandleader will be told to make an announcement. Thank you for your patience, and bon appétit."

And with that, our food appeared. I didn't remember ordering, but it was just what I had been planning on selecting from the menu.

"Lateral turbulence on a train?" I asked.

"It can happen," Jessie explained. "Especially one that's larger on the inside –you know how when you're looking through a telescope at something that's been made bigger by lenses, the tiniest vibration of your hand looks like you're shaking it hard?"

"Oh, yes. Is it the same way with trains?"

"Sort of. Well, enough for the simile to explain the effect without getting all technical at dinner, anyway."

"The Hogwarts Express never did that, that I recall. Is this train different?" I had to ask. Yep, we were going to get all technical at dinner.

"The Hogwarts Express runs on the wide-gauge Brunel track that's nearly exclusive to wizarding use in Scotland. It could roll through just about anything with minimal vibration. This one uses the same gauge as Muggle rail, and as such, is just a little bit wobbly when the weather is really obscenely bad." Jessie pointed at the tines of her fork in pairs to show the difference in track gauges, which I found very illustrative. "It's not quite two-to-one, like this fork is…in fact, the conversion from Brunel to regular involves a right-hand third rail at about 2/3 the distance from the left-hand side.

"Brunel's track is much better, really," Deroulede explained. "You can ride it at just about any speed without spilling your coffee. Some people say that was why Brunel preferred it and did his best to make it the standard. There are lots of us wish he'd succeeded," –he said, sipping his wine very carefully, so as not to spill, "though I suspect the dry-cleaning industry lobbied heavily against."

"You know, I'd never noticed the gauge difference," Mr. Tickes observed. "You say most Scottish wizarding rail is the bigger kind?"

"Almost all of it, except for a few conversion lines and some light rail in mining use. It provoked a lot of controversy back in the Stump administration, with most English wizards in favor of standard gauge, to be compatible with the Muggles, and most Scots preferring Brunel for the obvious benefits. The Hogwarts Express isn't the only train with conversion axles running in the UK these days. It's a good job Stretching Charms work so quickly and well for it."

"So the little funnel-shaped pieces of track with the little boxes, those are the conversion joints?" James asked.

"Exactly."

"I'd rather wondered. And the box is where the charm is cast?"

"Not quite. The box contains a sort of magical resonance battery –usually the same sort of potion-in-metal-case job we use in a Muggle watch conversion. The engineer casts the Stretching Charm at the box as the engine approaches and the resonating rebound of the spell stretches or contracts all the axles as the train passes over the box and through the funnel." Jessie managed to illustrate this very neatly with two napkins, a pair of forks and a salt cellar, and James seemed very pleased with her knowledge.

Apparently Myron Tickes had gone in heavily for model railroading of late and it was nice that somebody knew what the old fellow was doddering on about. Jessie agreed that her grandfather could be a positive fount of useful, if bizarre information, and asked whether he'd mentioned the profession of the original, female inventor of the conversion points in the hearing of her little brothers. James said that regrettably, the old man had, and they had had to have a stern word about child-appropriate topics. Jessie laughed.

"Nobody stopped him from telling me such things!"

"And you grew up to take over Knockturn Alley."

"I did no such thing! I encouraged Knockturn shopkeepers to vote for a union with Diagon and a single parliamentary body for the control of both and then participated in a very modest civil demonstration to encourage the idea's implementation."

"You led a parade."

"Did not. 'Parade' distinctly implies organization and…and festivity aforethought! This was just a bunch of people walking about casting _Lumos_ charms."

"And singing the England National fight song," I contributed, not very helpfully.

Sarah gave me a knowing look, as if to say 'They're mad as dormice, but we love them,' and I found myself returning it easily with a nod.

"Are they still hauling out that old dirge for every third thing in Diagon?" James asked. "Seems to me there's got to be some other song in the world that as many people know."

"With clean lyrics? I wouldn't take that bet," Sarah smirked.

"I feel bad 'cause Ian's already so sick of it and Diagon's no escape." Jessie passed me the salt before I could ask. "Though I will say it's nice to have him about with the season off. Another pair of hands in the showroom saves hours of time and you won't believe how many people come in for an autograph and leave with their holiday shopping done."

"That's good to hear. I suppose it'll be just like Gard and James when they were your ages, though I'd imagine with a _little_ more bickering." Jessie's stepmother raised an eyebrow.

"Sarah, be fair. Gardner and I argue more now than Ian and Jims ever did." James took a bite of peas and swallowed neatly. "There's far more likely to be _plotting_ from the two of them. You saw how quickly Jamesina was ready to buy me out."

"Brothers for arguments, sisters for plans," I agreed.

"That's right, you do have some of each, don't you, Charles?" Deroulede asked. I wondered just how good 'his spies' were...though Weasleys are known for having big families.

"I'm second of six boys and our Ginevra's the youngest; the only girl."

"Seven! We should elect your mother. Doesn't matter to what office, after seven children, she could handle You-Know-Who, the Euro discussion and still have time to open the Hogsmeade fair," Sarah reflected. "I've just got the little twins home and it's a full-time job."

"We should ask her to write a book on how she did it," Jessie agreed. "If nothing else, it'd make the girls from my class who are acting like one is a great big deal realize how lucky they are."

"Well, to be fair, children are always a great big deal, whether they're yours by birth, adoption or marrying-in. I won't say you or Ian are nearly the workload Robby and Davy are at this point, but it doesn't mean we worry about you less."

"Perhaps I'm being unfair to them," Jessie thought, before smiling ruefully. "Though if I get one more pregnant woman asking if the vibrations in a watch can hurt a baby, I think I just might go mad."

"Have one of your own, just to prove it's safe," Deroulede suggested. "All the watches you wear and work around..."

And, with that, the conversation came to a grinding halt. James looked at me, I looked at Jessie, Jessie looked at Sarah and then everyone looked at Deroulede, then back at the two of us.

"I'll start a family when there's peace in Great Britain, thanks," Jessie remarked, in a voice that was nevertheless just a bit smaller than usual.

"I'll drink to that," I agreed, meaning to be supportive, but somehow it sounded...well, not entirely without subtext. Still, it managed to pass social muster, everyone drank to the notion and the dinner went back to merely being just a hair on the side of awkward, as opposed to the whole shedding tabby-cat.

"Have you ever had this chocolatey pie stuff, Charles?" James asked, gesturing to a plate of tiramisu which had just appeared. "I can never remember the name, but they make it rather well here." A plate popped into existence at my setting a half-second later. "Oh, you've got it, too."

"They take some pride in guessing what people will like best on the Trans-European," Jessie explained, slipping a spoon into what looked like a small serving of the same pinkish ice-cream she tended to pick up at Fortescue's. "Never been wrong yet, at least not with my entirely predictable tastes."

"Cinnamon-flavoured," James smiled. "There's something to heredity after all."

"I only hope that extends to tomorrow's trials as well," Jessie replied, looking just a bit nervous and trying, badly, to conceal how pleased she was to be compared to her mother. "I'm still not a hundred percent certain my escapements are up to snuff."

"I 'ave visions of my mainspring deciding to slip," Deroulede confessed. "And you, at least, 'ave waterproof cases down. I'm still not perfect in my threaded flat bezels."

"Did you see the hands I cut for Charlie's watch?" Jessie mourned. "I got _them_ right, thank goodness, but only about one in three ever comes out that precise without edge knapping. I wish I had another week to work on my powder dies."

"When I sat the masterpiece, I worried myself ill about my center pins being off," James remarked. A second later, Deroulede and Jessie looked up in near-anguish, having thought of something else to be worried about. "But that won't happen to either of you. I've seen your work and it's thoroughly accurate."

"I think my watch that Jessie made is the best one I've ever seen, let alone owned," I announced loyally. "And I may not be an expert like...everybody else here, but I think you'll both do well."

"If it were just doing well, 'zat would be enough," Deroulede sighed.

"It's like a...well, like a doctoral thesis," Jessie explained. "Every masterpiece has to include some new innovation that has never before been seen, or some combination of technologies and techniques that makes the masterpiece unusual and unique."

"And heaven 'elp you if they think it's derivative."

"I mean, you can have the same general style as the house under which you trained, but the design itself has to be new as the first bloom of spring or you've had it."

"One judge thinks of a design that yours looks a bit too much like and that's all she wrote," James agreed. "Happened to a bloke in my year. Poor fellow left the field."

"Awfully subjective, isn't it?" I asked. "Is it just the design that you're marked on, then?"

"No. Our watches have to be accurate to within a certain point for one grade, another for a better one and to just about laboratory-grade precision for high honors. Then they must resist the Five Conditions for twenty-five actual hours, five hours each." Deroulede explained.

"What are the Five-?"

"Heat, cold, humidity, dust and impact," the clockmakers, including Sarah, explained in unison.

"So they heat it up, chill it, soak it, get it dusty and thump on it?" I was going to say 'that's all?' to reassure them, but then Jessie explained further:

"They do all of those _five times _for an hour each time. It's not just the Conditions that are bad, it's the changes between them that can kill a watch. And you only get five hours to make the thing in the first place."

"...That...does sound challenging, to be sure. But really, Jess, I think your escapements are fine, especially that chronophage you made last week with the double seat."

"Any chance of Charles here sitting the Novice Test?" James asked. "It _is_ tradition."

"What's tradition -I mean, what's the Novice Test?" I asked.

"It's the test to become a novice clockmaker," Jessie explained, "and you could pass it easy as can be."

"I'm not sure. I don't know nearly as much as-"

"Remember the other day when there was only one brownie left and I made you, Fred and George name parts of the clock to decide who got it? Your answers then would be enough to pass."

"I don't remember chocolate brownies ever being a part of the studying," James objected. "In my day we made do with sensible butterbeer and ginger biscuits when we turned our dates into capable novices."

"Is _that_ the tradition?" I must've looked fairly funny, because Sarah grinned. "I suppose I have to do well on this Novice Test if I want to keep seeing Jessie, then?"

"That's nonsense. It was never a tradition per se, just an odd quirk of the family's old habit of marrying colleagues," Jessie seemed to be daring her father to say otherwise.

"Indeed. Siobhan passed it years before I so much as met her, as did Sarah. My grandmother, however, she did take and pass it with the intention of impressing my grandfather," James explained. "And it is so much more interesting when you know someone taking the Novice Test, because otherwise it's terribly simple and does tend to drag on a bit."

"Very well. I shall take the test, pass it and...and..." I was trying to be the gallant and rise to what was, admittedly, a somewhat weak-sounding challenge and it just wasn't sounding right. "And then whatever comes after, I'll do that next."

For a full twenty seconds, I was the dashing, brave admirer rescuing my Jessie from other clockmaker suitors and earning the respect of a storied old profession.

But then, as I realized everyone around me had gone just a bit too cheerful except Jessie, who was beginning to blush...

"Well, as for the afters, I do have to warn you that clockmaking does have it's frivolous side," James explained, "if it can be called that."

"It's 'ardly smutty," said the Frenchman.

"A novice who passes can claim a kiss, and there's a chivalrous old tradition of the pale blue novice's ribbon being tied onto the candidate for master who trained them up. Looks good to the judges, who know the candidate will keep up the profession when they are gone, helps encourage them to do their best, given that -well, it is oftener a lady-love than a gentleman, but that someone who admires them is supportive, and it is not uncommon for new-made masters to open the dance with their affiliated novices at the Ball." Sarah apparently thought the old ways as romantic as could be.

"It is also not uncommon for new-made masters to wind up marrying whoever they dance with at the Ball. I myself asked Siobhan when she had her green ribbon and I my blue." James became suddenly rather interested in his shoes and Sarah continued:

"The new-made master with the highest honors opens the dancing and then the rank follows the marks," Deroulede explained. "And since one master can ask another, things can be somewhat awkward if, say, Master A is interested in Master B and Master B winds up getting a better score. The ribbons, 'owever, are one way to save the dance."

"So I had better get one, then, eh, Jess?"

"If you want to," she smiled, looking a bit less shy. "It's also tradition for a journeyman to leave his green ribbon with someone when he or she goes up to the trials, with the understanding that they'll collect it after their dance together." I understood what she meant.

"What a charming custom! It's like school ties or flower corsages."

"Eh...that's not quite all of it. The near-smutty part is how they're put on each other," Deroulede tried to look nonchalant. "One kneels before the object of one's ribbon and ties it about their wrist. For a student, the higher-ranking party may choose to ruffle the 'air or otherwise indicate that there is no romantic relationship, but if there is...well, kisses are not un'eard of."

"It's all so Continental," Sarah sighed happily.

"It's stuff and nonsense with a bit of rank sentimentality," Jessie sighed.

"Come now, Jamesine, if we had not green-ribboned each other, things could have been very exciting these past few years," Deroulede grinned mischievously.

"So why isn't your Juliette going to be there?" Jessie asked.

"...I am too afraid I will fail," the French watchmaker admitted, in a voice small as the kitten he'd raised by hand. "It would disappoint her so."

"I'm just as scared, Paul," Jessie said, patting his hand. "Better they see us at our worst and know there's room for improvement than miss us at our best and never know what we can really do."

There was a long silence.

"If you will excuse me, Madame Tickes, Messieurs, Jamesine," Paul stood up and bowed in his courtly way, "I 'ave an owl to send."

And as strange as it was to be heading off to a test for myself as well, I didn't think we had anything to fear ahead at the Chronologie Mechanique.

I was deeply wrong.


	29. Some Articles

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Some Articles

"How _did_ you know I liked this place, Ian?" Samantha asked me, her eyebrow raised but not so sharply as when she had asked how I knew which House she had been in. We were walking toward a Tube station from the classic-movies theater Jess had recommended, and it was beginning to snow again.

"Asked my sister," I replied. Honesty and common sense always seemed to catch Sam off-guard, and I relished her cute little pause of incredulity. It was much like the pause a cat makes just after falling off a precarious stack of books and just before washing itself as if it meant to do that all along.

"That's going to be a thing with us, isn't it?" I tried not to let my face show how much I relished that 'us' as she continued, really I did. "Any time you want on my good side, you have access to my best non-related friend, and any time I want insight on you, I need only beat Jessie at poker."

"Have you ever had a relationship that _didn't_ involve some sort of friends-and-family overlap? I mean, it isn't as if the wizarding world were all that large, really. Our generation especially could be considered small."

"Often, actually, but that's more because I don't feel constrained by nationality –or magical status, for that matter." It was things like that, so scandalous to the right people and yet so matter-of-fact, as if Sam were daring me to change my opinion of her…I liked that. "And how often are the sort of girls who follow England National friends with your sister?"

"Your own sister Kendra has home-pitch season tickets."

"Yes, and I'm not above seeing a game myself, with my Dad…but there's a difference between casually watching a game and removing one's shirt for the signature of a favorite player."

"It was _one_ bosom! And I only signed it because she seemed so awfully drunk, I felt finding the signature and realizing she'd gotten completely pissed in front of someone she's a fan of might be a good lesson." Sam was snorting a little into her glove. "It wasn't even a particularly impressive bosom –I mean, as bosoms go, not that I make a comparative study." The snorting continued. "What?"

"You keep saying 'bosom.'"

"Well, what else is it called?"

"Chest? Cleavage? Décolletage? Boobies? It's common knowledge that by the time one has anything describable as a bosom, it's stopped being interesting to anyone over the age of ten months old."

"I don't think this one ever was interesting, and the poor ten-month-old wouldn't get much of a meal on it."

"You could wind up with a nasty paternity suit if you're not careful. Girl gets sloppy pissed, you sign the sweater kittens, she gets even sloppier and goes to bed with some bloke –morning comes, followed by eventual morning sickness…you'd have a bit of a job to get out of that."

I choked a little at the mental picture her metaphor provoked.

"Who calls them sweater kittens? Is that some evil American slang?"

"Think so. It's a mess of muddle, being a colloquial polyglot."

"Better that than a pro athlete. I actually have a solicitor on retainer for just such occasions –not that there's really a need, but it's been known to happen on damned flimsy pretexts." I wondered if now was a good time to mention…but no. I hadn't even told Jessie I had really gone through with it, and she was my own sister.

"Ever have to use the fellow?"

"Twice. One, the child in question turned out to belong to the lady's current boyfriend, and very obviously, given that he plays Chaser for Botswana and she was our decidedly Irish sports therapist."

"That must have been a little embarrassing."

"Sort of. He asked me to take the test despite my protestations that we were just friends and always had been, I didn't mind because I had nothing to fear and afterwards he was so contrite that he proposed to her. She turned him down six times in two years before giving in, and I sent nice presents for the baby and their wedding. I didn't blame the fellow, he'd been sued himself on flimsier pretexts and didn't even believe he could have children."

"Noble attitude," Sam observed. "What was the other occasion?"

As we entered the Tube station and slid our cards through the turnstile, I decided it was best to just tell her.

"…First, what is your opinion on gay rights?"

"I'm half-American."

"You object, then?"

"No, that'd be half-backwater American or half-moron. I'm in favor of all civil rights, especially those that benefit people I care about."

"And if a gay couple want to be parents?"

"They don't make straight ones take a test. Considering how many unwanted kids there are, I can't see how it could do anything but good."

"Yes…but considering, too, that a wizarding gay couple would have the problem of getting, specifically, a child with magical abilities…what'd be your take on –erm, genetic material donation?"

"...You have a kid?"

We stepped onto the train and I nodded.

"Genetically speaking, yes, I have a sweet little biological son, whom I consider more like a nephew. He sends me owls through the agency who matched me up with his two mothers, and we decided before he was born that I'd be called 'uncle' until he's old enough to understand... well, _things_...and then we'd kind of go from there. I don't know his name or where he lives apart from 'somewhere in the UK,' they have no idea who I am, and neither party is permitted to divulge such information to the other without legal action until the child turns seventeen or both parties decide it would be best. I only involved my solicitor because I felt that if the boy should somehow be orphaned or in dire financial or medical straits, I wanted to be notified and I wanted some legal proof that he was at least biologically mine, so that he'd have a home or an Uncle Ian to pick up a tuition cheque if he needed one." There. My bomb dropped, I looked up from my trainers to the first girl I'd ever told. "…Does…does that bother you?"

"…I think it's actually kind of adorable," Sam smiled. "Those women have a son because you did a kind thing, and you have a sort of nephew who sends you owls. Can he write yet?"

"Yes. He's nearly eight now, and while neither party's allowed to send gifts that'd identify who they are, it turns out Quidditch tickets can be managed, with a few qualifiers, so he's seen me play. I sent tickets for his last birthday."

"Aww!"

"Trouble is, the agency insists for legal reasons that tickets must be purchased by box office voucher, so the giver can't know where the receiver will be sitting. Just as well, I'd have gotten my head knocked off otherwise looking for the little guy. We did beat Zimbabwe, too, so he got to see England win."

"Did he write back about the game?" Sam asked with a hopeful smile. I took out my wallet and unfolded the letter, which had begun to get a bit frayed with age.

(Well, of _course_ I carry it with me. It's one of only four possessions I really can't live without.)

'_Dear Uncle,  
Thank you for the tickits to the quidditsh game! England won! I likd the cheers we did in the stands. Mum and Mommy taut me the chant for when the seker is going to get the goldren Snich and we chanted it really lowd and he got it! I wish I could be a Quidditsh player when I gorw up, but don't think I can. Mum says almost nobody gets to play Perfessonal quidditsh, but Mommy says she knew a couple of peple at Hogwarts who do now and I mite get to meet them on my next birfday. That would be awesome! If I could be a quidditsh player, I would be a Seker, because the seker is the bravest! The Seker for England is called Eeyan Tiks, he is grate. Mommy says he could have ben kiled doing the crazy ivuns and wronsky faynts he did in the game, but Mum says that's how the brave b-word manags to get more snitch than and then Mommy made her stop because she was going to say a bad word I think. It was a good bad word thoug. Quidditsh has bad words in it sometimes but that's okay I know not to say them in Mixed compunny, which means Grandma or ladies who haven't said a bad word ferst. Also at the quidditsh game we had chips and I drank a whole bottel of soda and Mommy said I would be sik, but I wasn't. Do quidditsh players get sik or do they just ask the heelers who took care of the injrred player at the game to make them a coco? Mum says coco is beter than most of what heelers do. If I were a heeler I'd make coco for everyone and not do other things that aren't nice. Thank you agan for the tickits! I will send you something soon to!_

_Love from Nefew.'_

"What do you think of that?" I asked, not a little proudly.

"'The Seker is the bravest,' he says," Sam quoted with a little smile, pronouncing it as spelled. "You know, I bet there are a lot of ordinary fathers who never get a letter like this."

"I'm pretty sure there are."

"It probably took him all day to write it, too." Sam remarked, admiring the straight, perfect letters. "Look how neat his penmanship is. I was never that careful as a child. His 'Uncle' probably means the world and a half to him."

"The agency helped his mothers and I decide before he was born on a form of address that was...well, close enough for it not to be a bad shock in case it was decided we should meet but not so specific as to complicate a little child's view of things. 'Uncle' seemed…sensible, so he knows I'm his family, but not as close as a father, since I'm really not, not in the ways that count. He's supposed to be told the biological specifics once he's old enough to understand them –though it's up to them when 'old enough' is."

"I do have one question."

"What?"

"Why?"

"Why do his parents decide?" I hadn't caught which question of many she was asking, so Sam clarified:

"Why did you do the donation with the agency? I think it's one of the sweetest things I've ever seen someone do, but I wonder what brought it on."

"Did you happen to see the match between Ravenclaw and Slytherin, my seventh year and your first?"

"I think so…_oh_."

"Yes. Madam Pomfrey was able to –erm, patch me up, and there wasn't any damage, but I did catch a lecture about one more accident like that keeping me from ever having kids. So once I graduated, I thought it might be worthwhile to bank –er, genetic material, just in case, and when I was looking into agencies that did that, I learned about donation and it sounded like a nice deal –all the fun of a long-distance, anonymous child you can spoil with presents, none of the responsibility. I chose an agency specializing in gay couples because so few others wanted to donate to them, that, and I've known several gay and lesbian couples who'd make or have made fine parents."

I didn't mention the fact that since I'd made first-string on the team, I'd finally had girls interested in me –including some who had been openly nasty before. After a few attempts at relationships went south, I'd more or less given up hope on finding a nice girl who liked me for anything but the jersey, at least until retirement, at which point I thoroughly expected to turn back into weedy, stammering Twitchy Tickes from second year, but taller.

"That's one of the most unselfish things I've ever heard of –except you did take some responsibility, didn't you? With the paperwork requiring contact if the boy has some hard times, and the legal right you still have to him if something should, heaven forbid, happen to his mothers, you could become -well, I won't say a more real, but a more involved father any day."

"It was the sonogramme photo that made me do that," I confessed. "He just seemed so little and by the time the sonogramme photos were actually showing baby instead of a tentacled see-through thing with a tail, I was beginning to make decent money at the game and wanted the chance to help the little fellow out, if he ever, you know, happened to need it. Any more, my solicitor said he didn't think the two mothers would permit. He was surprised they agreed to have the last-resort papers done. Apparently I'm one of only five donor fathers at that agency who even offered."

"It was good of you. I wonder if he looks anything like you."

"It's possible, though his mothers picked me out by anonymized photograph, among other details, so it's possible he resembles one of them just as much. They said gay couples often like to pick a donor who looks like the noncontributing parent, so the child resembles both."

"Sensible. How do you cope with wondering, though, every time you see a dark-haired woman?"

"Better than I did before. Now, instead of stumbling over my own tongue, I can walk over and make a good impression."

"Why would you-"

"Jess says I have a type." Samantha started to say something, than stopped as if noticing her own very dark hair, and frowned.

"Seriously?"

"Well…I like dark-haired girls. They're the prettiest, and once you get to talk to them, they're usually the smartest. Uncle Gard says it's atavism and that Dad never looked twice at a blonde in his life, but I think it's probably just what I'm wired to look for." She still seemed a little disturbed and I stuck my hands back in my pockets. "Isn't there something you like particularly well? Enough to look for in potential mates?"

"Tarrnme," she mumbled.

"Huh?"

"I like guys who are taller than me. Which makes things a little challenging, as you can imagine."

Samantha was, like her sisters, almost 180 cm tall, which was saying something for a girl. I'm only about 194 myself, which is not _much_ taller, but enough not to burst my self-esteem like an overripe marrow squash under the boot of aesthetic preference.

"Height never really occurred to me as potentially negative."

"Of course not. You're within the average for your gender."

"You aren't? What is the average for women?" Sam bit her lip gently and a little trace of a smile crossed her face. Was it because I hadn't said 'girls'?

"Five-eight is the upper end of 'average.'"

"And you're…five-ten? Five-eleven?" I converted from metric in my head.

"The latter. See the shoes?" I looked down at her right foot and saw she was wearing a kind of peculiarly flat Muggle-looking trainer with canvas sides to it. "Kendra skips about in heels and Melanie has a fondness for boots…but I prefer flatter shoes. Makes me stick out less."

"Did they tease you at school for your height?"

"Bean-pole, Sammy-long-legs…you name it."

"Too-Tall Tickes, oughta' be playing Chaser?"

"…That's right, you are pretty tall for a Seeker."

"It was better than Twitchy Tickes, shortest boy in Ravenclaw. I made the team in third year and was put onto first string at once, since all three Seekers had graduated and I was the shortest decent player who tried out. By fourth year, I was ten centimeters taller and by seventh…well, here I am. Thing was, I didn't stop playing when the growth spurts hit, so I didn't have any awkwardness on the pitch. And the extra reach helps some, according to the magazines."

"I bet it does. You know, I never thought I'd be on a date with a professional athlete."

"I never thought I'd be on a date with a woman more successful than I am." Sam's eyes went wide and she looked up at me with a raised eyebrow.

"Explain."

"You own a one-third interest in the most successful shop in Knockturn Alley and fifth-most-successful in the London shopping district, excluding restaurants and Gringotts. You can also reasonably expect to own that interest, if not more when the shop branches out, for the rest of your life. Most Quidditch players make more up-front, but we can only play until we're perhaps forty at the absolute most. That leaves coaching, refereeing, merchandising and administration, if we want to stay in the industry, and we're up against wizards and witches who've actually been doing proper work instead of playing a game professionally. It's partly why I'm relieved to be working for Jess in the off-season…I literally need the business experience, if I'm to have any career whatsoever once the old pins and paws give out."

"That's true, but you're forgetting that our business virtually hinges on a sub-par economy. As a pawnbroker, I deal primarily with people on the edges. Either they need money fast and can't get a more socially-respectable type of loan, or they're looking for respectable items at a bargain price because they have to maintain a position in reduced circumstances."

"How is pawning less respectable? Anyone with a grasp of maths can tell that those paycheque loans are utter usury, and what else is there when one needs a comparatively small amount, say, fifty Galleons, quickly? Hell, the charge for an overdraft alone is something in the thousands of percent, if you think of it as loan interest. Nobody's fairer than pawnbrokers."

Sam was looking at me with the prettiest, most unguarded smile I'd ever seen on her, so I continued. "Instead of a weak little promise-to-pay that can only be enforced by loan shark violence, ruinous interest, obscene fees and destroyed reputation, the pawnbroker accepts a real and solid item as sign of good faith. If the borrower can't make the debt good, the pawnbroker keeps and sells his item, making back the loan amount and a small profit to keep the business running and compensate her for her time. If the borrower can pay it, he has his item back and knows the pawnbroker is there for him, should he ever be in bad straits again. I'd rather deal with a pawnbroker than a bank or a moneylender, every time."

"I wish you could say that to customers! Half of them look down their noses at us for being in Knockturn, for running a pawn shop…the lot of it, and wouldn't you know the snobbiest ones want to skin us the worst on price? I had a lady in yesterday with a Tickes watch to pawn. You know as well as I do that they have the dates of manufacture marked and the values are incredibly straightforward based on model, age and condition."

"Which was it?"

"Gardner Tickes ladies' pendant, size two with the gold case. It was dated mid-1921."

"Condition?"

"Fair case, working condition. It'd been to a Muggle pawnbrokers a couple of times and had a little worse than superficial case scratching. Oh, and the chain was badly tangled."

"So about twenty, maybe twenty-two Galleons on the antique market, at most."

"You have the prices memorized, too?"

"…Don't tell Jess."

"_Why_ do you have the prices memorized?"

"How much is a 1941 edition of Waffling's _Magical Theory_?"

"Sixteen and five if it's in good shape, thirteen, three and seventeen if it's… I think I see what you mean. Can't really avoid the family business, eh?"

I basked in her smile as the train shook a little. It was rather full and we'd been hanging onto the straps –and evidently the flat trainers were not perfect at keeping a girl on her feet, what with the slush-slick floor. I caught her easily and our eyes met for a moment before we straightened and awkwardly got back to talking. It was a pity, too.

"So what'd you offer for the watch in pawn?" I asked.

"Ten Galleons."

"Sounds fair to me. Not everyone collects antique watches and if it was scratched, it'd cost at least thirty Sickles to have the thing replated."

"Well, at retail. Jessie does a lot of our replating for us, with materials at cost and labor in shop credit."

"That's an…interesting arrangement." I was thinking of the Redferns' more unusual inventory and blushing a little.

"She mainly likes broken jewelry for the metal and ancient watches because busted timepieces are her cryptic-crossword puzzles." That made more sense. "Besides, customer confidentiality is our most critical stock in trade, Ian. Thought you'd know that!" Sam gave me an arch look and I knew she knew what I'd been thinking. "Anyway, the old baggage, after remarking to Kendra that our tidy shop was a credit to our class –not meaning shopkeepers, by the way, felt the need to throw a bit of a tantrum when we offered such a low price for her oh-so-valuable watch."

"What'd you do?"

"Suggested she take it over to Tickes and Sons for appraisal and bring a slip with its' up-to-date pawn value."

"Oh! Fierce!"

"So not only would she have to go into a crowded, high-class place and admit she was trying to pawn something, but Jessie'd give an estimate based on the movement, the case and what it'd cost us to have her restore the thing. She'd be lucky to get eight for it."

"I take it she resented your suggestion?"

"Accepted ten Galleons rather gracelessly and then had the gall to return on day eleven in tears, explaining that she'd got the money but was only a day late and 'please tell me you haven't sold it!'" She gave a funny imitation of the woman's voice.

"Had you?"

"Gods, no. We'd never sell a Tickes watch in that kind of shape. It was over Jessie's for restoration –where she'd talked to it, by the way, 'poor thing, we'll get you replated,' and all of that. Has she _always_ talked to watches?"

"I catch myself talking to Snitches, too. It's an unfortunate trait."

"Endearing, though. So I told the old baggage where it was and that we'd have it in the next day, if she wanted to pay back the loan, her interest and the restoration costs. She was pawing through her purse pretty frantically, trying to find something we'd take to cover the extra. Then she said something about not realizing it had been her mother-in-law's and her husband would be so angry if he found it missing."

"I find that a little hard to believe."

"I don't. These society dolls, they don't usually think before they pawn. And she hadn't thought to play the sentimental value card when she first brought it in, which means either she honestly hadn't known or she really didn't realize how pawn shops work."

"So what'd you do?"

"Gave her a Kleenex, which she'd never seen before, so I showed her what one was for, and she laughed a little, then I explained how our business worked, gently as I could. I…I'm normally somewhat abrupt with people, and what with Mother visiting, I was making an effort to be nicer."

"Mums bring that out in people?"

"Nauseatingly so. Anyway, Society Doll seemed to understand and since I'd been sympathetic, she thought, about the whole thing, she explained why she'd pawned the damned thing in the first place –her husband had forgotten her allowance and she needed –not wanted, mind you, _needed_ to get her son something for his birthday. I know people, when they _need_ to get somebody else a present, they care about that somebody."

"Wouldn't the dad have been more than happy to go shopping with her or give her cash for a present?"

"That was what I asked, except I phrased it along lines of 'why not ask his father to pick out the sort of present boys his age like?' If you need to steer people, it helps to paint attractive little pictures in their heads –and punking out of the birthday shopping sounds a lot better with abstract father-son bonding in, doesn't it? Except, of course, it turned out her husband isn't the boy's father at all, but his stepfather, and apparently there's no love lost."

"Oh, how sad!"

"So I said I completely understood her predicament, slid over the box of Kleenex and rolled a bar-chair around for her. That got her talking, about her son, her late husband, her new husband, the whole shebang. I fixed her a tea and she'd never seen Styrofoam cups either, but she thought they were charming and asked where they were from. So I told her, and she confessed that she'd actually liked Muggle Studies class very much and thought about going into the field before she got married. The key to the bar-chair and tea trick, by the way, is to get the customer so far on your side that she forgets you're a mean old businesswoman who wants money to hand over the stuff."

"Did it work?"

"Well, she certainly had me confused with a bartender in that I heard all about New Hubby's dealings with the You-Know-Whats, and how worried she was that their little men's club was going to get violent one of these days and what would she and her boy do if he got himself killed –you know, truly plumbing the depths of shallowness, this doll was."

"But she just up and told you her husband was a…?"

"Ian, I sell jewelry. For some of those society dolls, that's the closest they get to a therapist short of the manicure girl at Madam Primpernelle's." Sam grinned ruefully. "And boy, do some of them need it."

"What did you do?"

"Recorded the whole conversation. Everything in the shop winds up on tape, pretty much, for security reasons, and since we don't use the conventional methods, most people never realize we have them until it's too late. I said I'd owl the restorer and see if the watch could be gotten back faster, and Society Dame suddenly thought I was her bestest friend ever, so while I waited for Jessie's owl back, the two of us talked about men, jewelry and, of all things, our Other Inventory."

"The –erm, bedroom accessories?"

"Pretty much. You'd be a little disgusted at how baldly some of those purebloody types will come around to the subject of smut, thinking that Mudbloods are so much more free and liberated about that sort of thing, as if we were bonobo monkeys or something. This one actually up and asked if it was true 'my kind' were more liberated sexually."

"Please tell me you messed with her tiny mind."

"No, I just agreed and said wealthy businesswomen always had more expansive tastes. That got an apology out of her, and I asked what gave her the impression blood status had anything to do with it, and she stammered out some wharrgarble about her husband's club and the other girls at school. I disabused her of the notion that Purebloods were any better or worse about Naughty Things and implied that I had a client list that looked like _Who's Who_."

"Which I bet you do."

"Well, naturally. We're the one place in town where a person can be temporarily impecunious with no loss of social status, and since we also carry vintage things bought at estate auctions and the like, it's possible for the people with their noses highest in the air to come in 'looking for something for someone who has everything' or for 'bargain antiques.' I swear, we barely have to advertise on weeks where two pole-up-arse rich ladies run into each other at the shop."

"Why's that?"

"They insist to each other loudly and long that we're the best place to look for obscure _objets d' art_, choice antiques at bargain prices -whatever case or shelf they're standing near, and they make us out to be this best-kept secret of the sort of ladies for whom shopping is a hobby, then of course to keep up appearances they have to repeat the same story to all their friends, lest the other accuse them of being there to actually pawn something. It's like Melanie subcontracted with their egos to cover part of our ad budget."

"Do you ever have difficulty with the tourist trade?"

"We only get tourists relatively rarely, but since Knockturn was opened up, it's been more frequent. They're generally well-behaved, and Americans love seeing other Americans with a shop in 'a land abroad' as it were. They give you any attitude?"

"We had a real winner last week, came in, spoke to Jessie about a watch that I know beyond the shadow of a doubt she personally designed, thinking himself an expert and generally being extremely annoying, and then asked to speak to the master clockmaker."

"What'd she do?"

"I didn't wait to see what she'd do. I came over and asked a question, addressing her as 'boss.' She went to go check on it and the customer asked if she was my superior, so I informed him that she was, in fact, the owner of the shop and the designer of the watch he was looking at. And then you wouldn't believe how polite he got. Wound up placing a custom order, I think out of embarrassment."

"I wish our customers were that easy to bring around. Of course, it has to help, your blood status not being known as obvious to all and sundry."

"That only ever mattered to people whose opinions didn't, to my thinking. And it's generally remembered that Mum was Muggleborn, if you're talking about trade families, who don't always give a damn. Frankly, it was our great-granny's being a 'blood traitor' that lost us love from the purebloody pole-up-arses, and that was donkey's years ago."

"It's a lot worse to have a father married to whom everyone assumes is a Squib," Sam sighed ruefully. "If they knew the real truth, well, even with bargains and reasonably-rated loans, I'm not sure how our business would do long-term."

"So right now it's a little fashionable in certain sets to be a bigot. I'll bet you ten Galleons once the mess with You-Know-Who's over and bigotry's out of style, you'll be in 'great demand socially' and 'move in all the best circles.'" I imitated the posh types' accent and tone.

"That's assuming I don't laugh myself sick just imagining that. Could you really see me in an evening gown, nobbing it up in the fancy first-class staterooms and wherever it is snobs hang out?"

"Snobs and organized labour, mind, but yes, I can picture that easily." And what a picture it was.

"Organized as in your fancy old Tradesmen's Guilds? Knockturn hasn't got a guild I could join, no matter what I do, and Diagon wants nothing to do with us pawnbrokers."

"We Tickes aren't in any London guilds, apart from the Chamber of Commerce; just the Chronologie Mechanique."

"The international clockmakers' organization?"

"Exactly. There'd be no point in joining the jewelers or mechamagical artificers' guilds, as watches aren't really part of either discipline, though they do have aspects of each. That, and the burden of dues versus potential value just doesn't bear it out. Oh, and also we can't be arsed to do anything that doesn't mean a good chance for more business."

"Still, you have your white-tie balls and your posh-socks ritual investitures. Not much there to appeal to us half-Americans."

"Because Americans are _so_ egalitarian," I couldn't resist pushing her buttons back. "Funny, I was under the impression it was mainly Americans who camp outside the Queen's palace and think titled lords and things are the height of romantic aspiration."

"There are morons in every group," Sam snapped, evidently feeling the remarks a bit keenly but not willing to back down. "And it's Englishmen who say 'England' when they mean 'Britain,' note the burr in a Scotsman's voice and make a crack about how far he can stretch a Galleon, before nodding when they hear his daughters are pawnbrokers -because it must be natural for those kilted misers to make a Knut any way they can."

"But it's Americans who think every Englishman in the world is a chauvinist, who'd never forgive the worst remarks of the lowest scum and who become so resentful of the few true bastards in the world that they never notice an honest attempt at a compliment."

"It's Englishmen who can't manage a compliment without qualifiers!"

"It's Scotch-Americans who can't tell a fellow's half-Irish, who'd qualify anything up to and including a marriage proposal and who look...so lovely when they're angry."Sam whirled and looked at me as if I had suddenly begun speaking in a whole different language, such as that of ducks. "I can tell the world hasn't been fair to you, that you've gone hard and spiky to fight it back...and somehow, all I want to do is watch you glare at it and see what it might take to see you soft."

She yanked a metal lighter and a packet of chewing gum out of a pocket, only to remember a half-second later that the gum was gum, which provoked a muffled expletive. So instead she took a long belt from a hip-flask and shook her head before offering it to me. I sniffed it and blanched, but tried a drop. Firewhiskey, and a strong proof at that. It made me cough.

"You okay?" Sam asked suddenly, with a concern in her voice I wouldn't have believed if it wasn't in her eyes as well.

"Yeah...just not quite used to stuff that strong." I replaced the lid on the flask and handed it back. "So, how long ago'd you quit?"

"Six months since my last. And I didn't smoke that long; the cravings only come back when I'm stressed as hell."

"I normally wouldn't say this, given just _what_ you drink, but the flask is almost certainly healthier." She still looked...well, severe, which seemed to be her natural state much of the time. "And six months is a milestone, you should be proud. I know fags are harder to quit than anything else wizards have and most of the Muggle stuff."

For some reason, that remark caused her to laugh, long and hard. It was a lovely sound.

"Dear Ian," she managed to sputter between gasps of mirth, "please make a point never to use that particular sentence around straight women who aren't Brits in the future, lest somebody get the wrong idea of what you meant and become horribly depressed."

"...Huh?" We were just getting off the Tube and I, distracted by the turnstiles, didn't quite understand.

"Nevermind."

"Which word could possibly have a different meaning in...oh. Oh, my."

"...Yeah, see how that could make a girl who likes guys depressed over you?"

"Amused, yes. Depressed, I don't know..."

"Say, a girl whose 'type' was witty, affectionate men in about the same line of work who were at least two inches taller than she is?" Sam gave me a look of guarded interest and I did the only sensible thing I could think of, which was to stop, walk behind her and lean my back against hers.

"Feel between our heads. I'm sure we've got _five_ and a half inches difference, at _least_. No use getting depressed over a confused slang word for less than three." She obligingly felt the difference, then turned and gave me a more amused version of her glare. "If it helps, if I were American, I'd never have tried fags at all, and since I am British, I'll tell you they made me cough the one time I tried."

"Did you light it on fire?"

"It was that kind, yes. Nothing against the other kind, I mean, if that's even a polite term, which I kind of doubt, but I'd prefer something in a model with...what was the other horrible American slang word you taught me tonight? It wasn't bosom..."

"...Sweater kittens?"

"Yes, with a pair of those."

"I kind of assumed you had a preference for women, yeah. Apart from being kind of the default, there was the bit during the movie where you thought I didn't notice you noticing my shirt, or the fact that I wasn't just letting you put your arm around me because that theater was freezing."

"It was, wasn't it? I wonder if their furnace is having difficulty, because it's cold out here, too." I would have taken off my coat and put it onto her, but she already had one on, so I gave her my scarf. For some reason, this made her pause thoughtfully, then tilt her head to ask a question.

"Do you have a preference for not being cold?"

"Very much so. Specifically, I'm partial to fireplaces."

"So am I! I like the kind you can make popcorn over that isn't so greasy with fake butter it makes you sick."

"Sweet kettle popcorn, I think, in a real kettle, with cinnamon."

"Cinnamon? Really?"

"It's delicious. And I happen to own an actual popcorn kettle. Between that and the noodle pot, I've managed not to starve as a bachelor."

"What an astonishing thing. Have you also a fireplace?"

"My generous sister has left me full use of no less than three, even if you don't count the furnace downstairs."

"And I believe the little shop at the next corner sells popcorn. Tell you what, I'll buy the supplies if you've got the tools and the spot."

"Sounds like a plan to me."

And with that, we ducked into a little corner market. Sam headed off to the popcorn section, while I paused near a display of caramels. "Say, Samantha?"

"Yes?"

"Do you like caramel popcorn also?"

"Only on holidays, why?"

"I'd heard that was something Americans eat. Just wondered."

"I'll make you some. Get a packet of the plain ones?"

"Sure."

"Want to come over here and let me know what kind to get?"

"Okay." I picked up the caramels and walked toward the sound of her voice...right past the popcorn to a display of wholly different articles. She looked at me curiously and gestured vaguely toward the rack.

"I mean, there are certainly distinct possibilities here."

"...You think we might need some...to go with the popcorn?"

"I hope you don't mind."

"Mind? No, not at all. I always use...well, suffice it to say, I've never once done without. I wasn't certain you'd want to...well, need..."

"I was thinking it could be...well, if it's something you'd like to do."

"Only if it's something you'd like to do."

"I do believe I would...but it's been long enough, that we'd need to pick up more than just caramels and popcorn."

"It would, indeed." This was an awkward conversation, but we seemed to be managing it. On the one hand, I was thrilled beyond logic that she had even brought up the items on the rack, but it seemed a bit soon, and I didn't want to make her uncomfortable. "Have you a preference?"

"Not particularly, though I've seen interesting advertisements for several kinds."

"How about these..." I gestured to what seemed like a sensible assortment, "...mixed ones? Some of each?"

"Good idea!" Sam did not take the box I had gestured to, but instead selected one twice the size. "Cheaper in volume, you know, and it'd be terrible to run out."

"...Terrible," I breathed, managing not to sputter only by dint of effort. "You...don't think it's too soon to...do things that...need supplies?"

"Would you think less of me if I said I was afraid I'd lose my nerve otherwise?" For once, the ferocious, independent businesswoman looked vulnerable.

"Only if you didn't think me a sentimental fool for wanting to make sure you didn't by taking a bit more time and making absolutely sure we could be, if not permanently close, then at least good friends for a long time after."

"I think I can promise cordiality."

"As can I. But can you also promise not to laugh when I explain that a night eating popcorn and...having a need for certain supplies they sell in Muggle corner shops is not, at least to me, merely an interesting diversion with a prospective friend? It happens that party the first has a decided interest in exploring the possibility of contractual arrangement between oneself and party the second, with initial trial term and potential for permanent buy-in."

"Bureaucrat's brass ones, you can do that, too," Sam sighed, either in exasperation or breathless fascination, I'd never know. "Contractual...trial...I'm _bilingual_, for peace sake, and I haven't the vaguest clue what you meant."

I waited. It takes people who aren't used to bureaucratese a second or two for it to sink in.

It did.

"...Did you just...propose an arrangement of some kind to me, Ian Tickes?"

"And you accuse _me_ of using too many words. The 'arrangement of some kind' is superfluous to the sentence, if one's using vernacular."

"You can't be serious."

"Yes, I can. An initial, pre-contractual trial period, to be followed if successful with a preliminary contract to further relations and, in the fullness of time, secure a permanent arrangement with all due legal and social ramifications."

"You're seriously asking the question I think you're asking?"

"If you think I'm asking you to please date me some more, then become engaged to me, then marry me, assuming the first two go well, then yes. What other aim did you think I might have in mind?"

She seemed to think for a moment.

"Come to think of it, I think that's more or less the social contract of every date between people for whom...well...the necessity for these, isn't the end goal." She shook the little box.

"Why would that ever be the end goal? So unambitious! For someone like you, I'd imagine the opportunity to require said articles would be more or less everywhere." At that, Sam gave me a wide-eyed, shocked look. "You're strikingly beautiful, Samantha. I would imagine you receive more invitations to use those things than I receive requests for autographs."

"You're assuming too much, Ian. Firstly, if invitations are made, only a few of them come from people with sufficient sense to even know the needed accessories exist. Second, there are those who would rather not be seen with someone like me, even if there were a guarantee that I would be joining them for, well, item use afterwards. Most of the invitations...and however else I vehemently disagree with your statement, I will concede that I do get propositioned, but it's generally drunken clients old enough to be my father, obnoxious snobs who want a wild story to add to their repertoire and, of course, one of three school acquaintances who would like to date me so that they might borrow money."

"What ungentlemanly gits."

"I do refuse, of course. However, I will also confess that if you'd hoped I'd always refused in the past, well...I wasn't always so sensible about wizards and I've never been the sort to look askance at the potential of Muggles."

"I've been refusing because the invitations I get have more interest in the jersey than what's under it. And are there really people who still don't know what those are?"

"Did you learn about them at school?"

"Yes. The Ravenclaw Gentleman's Manual, a secret text stored behind the boys' lavatory pipes and contributed to by every gent in the house to have even a bit of luck with the fairer sex since time immemorial. There was an entire section dedicated to their importance and proper use."

"Well, we're Ravenclaws. Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs almost never hear of them unless one crops up in one of the girls' soppy novels or the boys' bawdy comic books, and I'm convinced Slytherins only know they exist to prevent the spread of hideous diseases from Mudblood trollops who might well dally with subhumans. Which, come to think of it, is a little true in my case, though I don't think of any of my exes as subhuman for that reason, Muggle or otherwise."

"Nasty break-up?"

"Only the one. I'm still good friends with the other two."

"That's three. You must have more experience than me, I've only dated one witch seriously enough for that activity to come up in the context of a relationship and the other was simply a dear friend in a similar situation with whom the benefits normally associated with more romantic entanglements were shared, and despite her eventually marrying someone else, we are still good friends also."

"That might really depend. If you're measure experience in variety, maybe, but in terms of duration of practice, you might still win. I've never had a relationship or a friendly entanglement last longer than six months."

"Perhaps I might. Though I suppose there are different types of experience."

"I would hope so. So, shall I get this or not?"

"You can get the popcorn if you must, but I'm afraid I must insist on buying these and the caramels myself. It's not correct for anyone to buy something for their date to wear, except for a corsage, on the first date."

For some reason, my perfectly sensible opinion on items for a gentleman to wear made Sam crack up laughing.

"Good lord, you've read Algernon Moncrieff's 'Manual of Manners.'"

"And I intend to live up to it, in all the rules still applicable. You'd be surprised just how many are."

"I suppose the need for a gentleman to tether a lady's broomstick is right out?"

"Definitely -though I still do in my sister's case."

"Well, she's terrified of heights. I would hope so."

"And if you like, I will still bring you the first spring flowers, even if modern railways and hydroponic farming techniques do mean the first ones are no longer particularly rare or special by comparison."

"On two conditions."

"Which are?"

"One, that we do make an effort to use the items in that box before the expiration date, whether it's better to wait a little longer than my first impulse or not."

"Considering that date's nearly a year hence, I think I can reasonably promise a good-faith effort."

"And two, not roses."

"Anything to please a lady," I agreed, with a courtly bow that made the poor Muggle girl behind the counter, who had been giving us occasional odd looks anyway, gasp and grin with excited envy even as Sam rolled her eyes. "...Just out of curiosity, why not?"

"I suppose this is when I could spin a story of tragedy, heartbreak and pointy thorns, but the fact of the matter is they make my eyes water and face swell up to where the overall effect is about as romantic as a bee sting."

"Oh. Allergies."

"Exactly."

"Are there any others I should be aware of?"

"Bee stings, roses and, of all things, walnuts. I can do peanuts fine, but walnuts could make me surprisingly ill, and there isn't a whole earthly lot I can do for that one, considering a lot of allergy potions use walnuts."

"What about the Muggle things? Little pink pills, or white ones, or white-and-pink...I think I've even seen a sort of green pill that's meant for those."

"Muggle medicine does work better, yes. I'd best get that popcorn, then."

All in all, it was one of the better first dates I've ever heard of, and definitely the best one I'd ever been on. As a gentleman, I can report only that we stayed up quite late and finished two-thirds of the -well, there isn't _that_ much popcorn in a container, but when you consider that it puffs up some when cooked, I suppose we did eat an unusual lot of it, but that was a long time after dinner and popcorn is really quite good for you compared to some other things. I also walked Sam back to her flat around five o'clock in the morning, which was good, given that it was her sisters' turn to open and Tickes and Sons opens ten to five on Sundays, so we both had time for sleep before work. We did have a nice early breakfast before parting, and I sent home a basket of cinnamon rolls for her mum and sisters, since you really can't make that recipe much smaller than it is and we were still somewhat full of popcorn and caramels. (We ate _all_ the caramels.)

I realize that other accounts of the war years may have considerably more candor in the area of romantic after-hours activities, but I feel no need to elaborate, except where the conversation is historically interesting, or, as in Sam's and my case, edifying and of practical educational value to the readers. It isn't right for a fellow to kiss and tell, as it were, but I can assure posterity that Samantha Redfern and I had an excellent first evening out that began a very happy relationship.

_Handwriting changes completely._

I got home around five, kissed Ian until I saw stars and almost shut the door on the basket of cinnamon buns, as I tried to go inside and wave goodbye at once, then sighed happily and leaned against the door. Sure enough, Mum, Ken and Mel were all awake, breakfasting in the kitchen and watching me. I jumped a bit in surprise.

"Somebody had a nice evening," Mum observed, sipping her breakfast coffee.

"You didn't wait up, did you?" I asked.

"No, we just thought we'd get an early start on the inventory," Mel explained.

"It's your morning off, and we know you hate that," Ken agreed. My sisters are such darlings.

"How was your evening?" Mum asked.

"...Remember how you told us when we were sixteen how your first date with Dad really went?" Our mother had owned up to carnal knowledge within the first four hours of knowing our father, which scandalized us all (except perhaps Kendra,) and generally put us off the idea of the activity until we were nearly out of our teens.

"Yes."

"Good advice, Mum. Good advice." I set the basket down on the kitchen table and headed towards the stairs. "Ian sent cinnamon rolls for y'all."

"I've said for weeks that you needed to get laid," Mel remarked with a grin.

"Actually, I managed not to bang him like a screen door in a hurricane. He wants to...wait and enjoy matters properly."

"What a refreshingly sensible opinion, though not one I'd personally have any truck with," our mother the sybarite observed, "though it doesn't explain the sighing and general just-got-laid look of you."

"Yeah. You actually look...relaxed."

"And _happy_. It's like that movie Mum produced with the pod people."

"...We ate popcorn and talked all night."

The three closest and dearest women in my life stared at me like I was, well, a pod person.

"By Merlin's clanking codpiece," Mel sighed, grinning, "I just won thirty Galleons. Pay up!" And with ill grace and growly sighs, my mother and sister did.

"I really thought she would bang this one," Mum remarked, "because lord knows she's needed it."

"And I didn't think they would hit it off," Kendra sighed, "at least not on the first date. I had kind of an argue-argue-snog _eventually_-hit-it-off kind of pattern down."

"You three are incorrigible and I'm going to have a nap," I replied smoothly, leaving the room. As I headed up to my room, I could hear them happily tasting and loving the cinnamon rolls, which Ian really does make well.

And in the interests of complete honesty, there's a lot one can do without the need for certain articles. So, so much. I've never felt more like a giddy teenager than I did that morning, despite being a sensible grown woman of means and property. The mad thing was that for the first time, I could imagine a life with someone besides myself.

It's a strange thing, love. When I think back to those days, how the one thing we were naïve about was the one thing that survived...it does make a little sense. I was completely and totally in love with Ian Tickes, and as terrifying as it is to admit it in retrospect, the mere inkling that I actually had at the time was pretty damn scary.

But still, pretty awesome.

I think that may count as the best first-date ever.

A/N: Apologies for the long delay. I began this story, as you can see, quite some time ago, and now that I have a little more free time (and circumstances so different it's nearly unimaginable compared to when I started,) I'm going to take a good crack at really and truly finishing it.


	30. Some Dancing

Chapter Thirty: Some Dancing

"Fraulein Tickes?" a voice at my elbow asked. We had just finished dinner and an amazing orchestra (made of clockwork, would you credit it?) was just starting what sounded like a sprightly foxtrot. Jessie and I turned to see who had spoken.

It was the stoutish fellow with the brown hair combed down on his head and the insignia pin in his lapel. Hans Prosser, of Something Whatsit German-soundingclocks.

"Mr. Prosser, how are you?" Jessie replied, her customer-service smile lighting up the room.

"Very well, Fraulein."

"Have you met Charles Weasley, my escort?" That made the German startle a little, but we shook hands and muttered the pleasantries.

"Have you been enjoying ze train?" Prosser asked.

"I have," I smiled and patted Jessie's hand. "It's lovely this time of year."

"The wines, in particular, are not to be missed. There is a Riesling, I believe, Fraulein, of which you are fond?" Jessie looked absolutely blank and I shrugged, but the little German pressed on. "You must try it, Herr Weasley. And perhaps, a glass for the beautiful Fraulein?"

Clearly, he wanted me to excuse myself, leaving Jessie alone with him.

Hell with that.

"_Accio Riesling,"_ I replied with a calm swipe of my wand, catching the bottle with my bare hand. I uncorked it with my thumb (which makes me look like a habitual drunk, but I actually perfected the skill on dragon medicine vials,) and gallantly poured a little glass for Jessie. And yes, I got the glass right. One of my colleagues in Romania was an oenophile who had taught me about the stuff. "Did you want some, Mr. Prosser?" I offered, holding out the bottle with my left hand.

"...I believe I would," Prosser replied, Summoning a glass for himself and letting me pour. My reaction only rattled him a little, so I poured a little glass for myself just on the off chance he was merely rude and not a conspirator. "I was wondering, Fraulein, if you might dance the ländler with me, for old times' sake. I still have happy memories of dancing it when we were but children."

"Of course, but only if you stop calling me Fraulein. We've known each other since we were six, I'm sure you can call me Jessie like everyone else does."

"And I am Hans," he replied stiffly, clicking his heels in a manner I'd never seen outside of films. "The ländler is after this foxtrot, I do believe."

"Isn't that an Austrian dance?" I asked. Jessie looked at me in surprise. "My mother tried her best to teach us the great dances of Europe, so we might be prepared for any occasion," I explained.

What I did not explain was the fact that I'd only learned the silly thing out of one of the sentimental Muggle movies Mum has rather a fondness for, and which only Bill and I could bear to sit through with her after we were thirteen or so. Me, I think any girl who'd think less of a fellow for escorting his Mum to the matinee isn't worth asking out, but Percy had other ideas and the twins had long since been barred from the premises. Ron was always a gent about taking Mum, and I sent him a few Galleons when I could to make sure he stayed that way, since I couldn't often be home to do it and she does love the movies so. Lately I'd been sending a few Muggle pounds to Dad so he might take Mum on Saturdays, more because the money helped than Dad needed reminding, and generally mentioning a particular film Mum had loved and Dad had missed when I wrote, so it was just an 'oh incidentally,' rather than a 'don't forget.'

In that second, I thought about what it might be like to have a grown son sending me a few Muggle quid to take Jessie to the Muggle films. It was a charming thought, and the dutiful clock-making boy I'd pictured inexplicably had red hair and glasses just like Jessie's...

I shook myself out of that reverie before anyone noticed.

"It is, indeed, Austrian. My mother was from Vienna, and she taught me," Prosser explained, with that momentary sad shut-eyed look people with a dead parent have. Normally I feel nothing but sympathy for that look, since my own folks gave me everything, but he was moving in on my...my Jessie, so I just resented him.

"Mothers must be splendid for dance lessons," Jessie nodded. "I had to make do with Uncle Gard and the record-shop fellows in Diagon. And the ladies at that one nightclub in Knockturn Alley, some of whom might have been gentlemen, come to think of it." She had that charming look of someone who realizes suddenly that something was a bit odd, then decided they didn't care. I do love that look on her. "But of course, I'll dance the ländler with you, Hans. Seems like just a bit ago we were on the train to be journeymen."

"It wasn't so long ago," Hans sighed. "Herr Weasley, are you a member of the Chronologie Mechanique?"

"Not yet, but I do hope to take the green this trip." Sometime around the sherbet course, Paul Deroulede had filled me in on the correct way to phrase my intention to take the novice test. Prospective novices were given a pale blue ribbon to wear into the test, which was turned into a light green one if they passed. The pale blue symbolized the novice's having mastered some small things outside of clockmaking (novices have to prove they can read, write and add numbers before being allowed in,) and the pale green represented how they had begun to grow as a clockmaker. The journeyman's ribbon was darker green and the journeyman-owner, or almost-master's ribbon was downright foresty. Passing the Masterpiece meant your ribbon became royal blue, for much the same reason blue ribbons are given as prizes in other things, and if one went on to distinguish oneself, there were other decorations and even such a thing as a black ribbon for someone who became a judge of the masterpieces or the Committee d'Excellence.

"Really? Under what master have you trained?"

"Jessie, of course," I replied, with a smile, taking her hand and kissing it, in what I hoped was the approved manner. That sainted Frenchman had given me a few suggestions while Jessie and Sarah were visiting the powder room together.

And apparently he had advised me quite well, given that Hans Prosser developed a stricken look, then stiffened in the most music-hall Prussian way, even as the clockwork orchestra struck up a bouncy song in ¾ time that I actually quite liked.

"I understand. Might I excuse myself and the Fraulein, Herr Weasley? It will not take but a moment after the ländler." Jessie shot me a startled glance, but went with Prosser to the dance floor nonetheless.

The ländler is a lovely old Austrian tradition. There's a bit more stomping and clapping than one sees in most dancing, but it has the potential to be romantic in a hoppity-skippity Alpine way. It looks a bit like the gentlemen should be wearing lederhosen and the ladies pigtails, but that's likely a rather ethnocentric opinion on my part, and I could tell Jessie was enjoying it. Prosser looked like a man facing a tax audit, but he got the steps right, and as the song ended and the dancers applauded, I could see him asking her a question.

I could also see her smiling in a sad way, squeezing his hand a little as she said something brief, and shaking her head before kissing him on the cheek and scurrying over to me.

"What is it?" I asked, concerned.

"At the moment?" Jessie asked, looking distinctly troubled.

"The Viennese Waltz!" the bandleader announced grandly.

"Good!" I replied with a grin, catching her hands and stepping onto the floor. As the song began, Jessie looked at me, and I hoped she knew it as well now as she'd seemed to know it in the Three Broomsticks an age ago.

She did. Even better, in fact. We whirled almost effortlessly around the floor with the other couples spinning in orbits apart from ours, and I could tell people were watching us enviously. It does help to have had lessons.

"It's so sad," she explained, the music preventing anyone but me from hearing as we danced. "Hans asked me to marry him."

"Didn't Paul warn you he might?"

"Yes...but it was still awful. I know his father is making him, and I know it's not any particular fondness for me motivating things, but he still looked as nervous as if he did mean it for real reasons. The poor fellow. I almost hated to turn him down, but..." She sighed as we spun, smiling a little ruefully. "For a tenth of a second I was so startled I almost blurted out 'yes' just to make him stop asking. Kind of a frightening prospect, that."

"Probably not at all what you were expecting."

"Well, I thought he might try it."

"Still, I would imagine you had another idea of how your first proposal would go."

"This is technically the sixth." That startled me, but Jessie shook her head. "It's not that I'm in any great demand, just that I've known a lot of these boys since we were quite small, and a couple of them were bright enough to ask me when I was rather too young to take it seriously."

"I don't suppose you said yes then?"

"Certainly not. I never had plans of marrying at all, not once I realized the only reason why Father is so unhappy is...well...it just didn't seem like something I wanted to do. I wanted to make the finest watches in Britain, and perhaps do well enough in business to take on apprentices."

"Which you've done now."

"Yes," she agreed thoughtfully.

"So there goes the old 'I have other ambitions' excuse, I bet."

"Well, not to me. I still have to make much better clocks if I want to be the best in Britain, and your 'apprenticeship,' if it can be so called, was so informal, not to mention _highly irregular_ in certain of the lessons," Jessie raised an eyebrow and I blushed to remember her last lesson, as well as what preceded it. To cover for the look on my face, I guided her into a turn and then returned to the pattern of the steps, which fit the music well and must've looked pretty good. "Thing is, I'm not certain, even if _I _said I had other ambitions, which I do, now that I've done a little better than expected, that the other fellows will accept it as an excuse anymore."

"So tell them you're marrying me, instead," I grinned, almost facetiously. "Soon as I take the green and impress your dad enough to be allowed into the family. Isn't that how you clockmakers do it?"

"...I've heard of its' being done that way," Jessie squeaked, coloring a little, and not just from the athleticism of the waltz.

"And it does seem to fit with their concept of narrative. Beautiful, brilliant girl everyone's expecting to fight over, shows up with her own student who isn't even from a clock-making family, very obvious attraction between the two, her father is tolerant of him at dinner in a guarded way, her stepmother seems to like him..."

"She does, you know."

"I got that impression. Which surprised me, I didn't expect to be liked by your folks at all."

"I have the awful feeling she might approve entirely too much of you. Takes all kinds of excitement out of the thing."

"Come now, I'm sure you _must_ have a relative who might disapprove of me purely for reasons of keeping the relationship exciting. Your younger brothers are two years old, perhaps I could prove myself entirely gauche on the matter of picture-books?"

"You wrote their favorite."

"Damn."

"However, I find the fact that my father seems to find your company acceptable to be all kinds of exciting, so that makes up for things."

"So your stepmother liking me is less exciting, but your father liking me is good?"

"It's the Jane Austen thing again. If your mother or stepmum approves, well, you're not going to let your mum tell you who to...well...you're just _not._ If your father approves, though, well, in that case it's a resounding endorsement, approval of your own choice and even more to be said for you."

"So ideally she'd hate me and your dad would like me?"

"Not at all. Ideally she'd be cautious and a little are-you-quite-sure-dear about you, then around the time Father approved, she'd suddenly discover some heretofore concealed quality which makes you desirable."

"I see one difficulty. Supposing you've been blessed with a stepmother who's _nothing_ like Mrs. Bennet in 'Pride and Prejudice.'"

We considered that for a measure or two as we danced.

"Good point," Jessie agreed. "I suppose having an adventurous and relatively shocking stepmother like one's...I suppose that's good."

"Doesn't fit the Victorian clock-making narrative, though."

"Well, technically Jane Austen wrote during the Regency and wasn't all that popular with the Victorians," she pointed out.

"The early Victorians didn't approve so much, but the late Victorians and Edwardians loved her, especially once the sentimental novels she parodied in her early work had come in and gone out of vogue again. The realism movement of the late nineteenth century adored her." Jessie had her head tilted a little, a vague smile on her face, as I shared this bit of trivia. "I'd compare the goings-on at this Chronologie Mechanique affair pretty favorably to Austen's themes, albeit improved as to the social equality of the sexes and men's fashion. I really can't abide tight breeches, you know."

"Is it as charming when I talk about clocks as it is when you talk about literature?"

"I certainly find your descriptions of clocks charming."

"I just want to take you to a library and have you pick out everything I should read, describing their merits and shortcomings in such passionate detail that we have to be shushed by no less than seven librarians."

"You're the only girl I've dated who's thought so. Most girls don't entirely like a fellow who reads as much or as seriously as them."

"Charlie, you probably read something like three times as much as I do. Not that I don't love a book, mind, it's just that with the job, there isn't so much time...that, and I honestly can't read as fast as you. You've heard me read aloud, and I'll tell you now, me reading compared to you reading is like comparing Professor Binns to a drama on Wizarding Wireless."

"Well, you just haven't had the same practice I have. Up until lately, you were the youngest sibling, so to whom would you have read to?"

"Whereas you have enough younger siblings to get several hours of practice a day. That does make me feel a bit better, but I'm still not as fast a reader."

"Again, siblings. If you have to finish your own book before their naps end and Percy wants 'Hogwarts: A History,' Ginny wants the princess with the mad castle and the talking cat, Ron wants a story about dragons and the twins race back with that dreadful one about the hamster for the hundredth time...you learn to read quickly."

"Which also explains a little of how you've come to view the world in terms of narrative."

"It helps me understand situations and react appropriately, even when I'm a bit out of my depth. Try it sometime. Look at the situation, and think, 'how would this go if we were in a story,' and 'what kind of story is this?'"

"At the moment, a ridiculously soppy one about clockmakers."

"Including one unusually pretty one," I remarked. "Typical for the female lead."

"I'm the lead? Seriously?" Jessie frowned and let out a sarcastic snort. "Have it your way. So we have a perfectly ordinary-looking clockmaker who happens to have an unusually nice dress for once. She turns down the proposal of an old classmate without any reason but a glance to her escort, who whisks her onto the dance floor and proceeds to _show up everyone..._" She raised an eyebrow at me and I spun her into a not-precisely-instructor-approved but stylistically appropriate spin that looked pretty good with the slowing end of the Viennese.

"They dance, and every eye is drawn enviously to the near-scandal: the most eligible female clocksmith in a generation, dating someone outside the craft. The sheer indignant traditionalism of it all competes with the human desire for a fairy-tale ending." We spun slowly as the waltz ended.

"...Maybe, but just whose fairy-tale is this, really?" Jessie gave me a smile as we whirled to a stop and applauded the orchestra in our gloves. Everyone wears gloves for dancing to black-tie events on trains, it turns out. Mine were kind of silly, but hers were long and satiny and...I do keep describing them. Well, when seeing your girlfriend's forearms without ten watches on is a rare event, long gloves are rather more exciting. It's like elderly wizards and ankles.

I followed her meaningful glance to the top of the stairs as the orchestra started a different type of song, possibly an adagio, and we all saw the lady who had just entered. My first thought was that she looked a fair bit like old pictures of my mother. Her nervous smile was a kind one, her eyes were very pretty and while she wasn't what anyone would call thin, hers was a very attractive figure that just happened to be about a century or so out of fashion. And, in the grand tradition of surprise entrances, her dress was perfect. I couldn't tell you the color beyond 'blue' or the style beyond 'something sort of late-Thirties, different than Jessie's,' but it looked really good.

"Mademoiselle Juliette Devereaux!" the officious house-elf announced, as if it weren't perfectly obvious from Paul Deroulede's expression just whom it was. She descended the stairs like every Cinderella anyone'd ever seen, except Paul met her halfway. They exchanged perhaps two words none of us could hear, and then it was onto the dance floor. Nobody else seemed to want to dance, but I'd be stunned if either of the French couple noticed.

"This is wonderful," Jessie breathed. "Just look at the two of them!"

"Now that's a fairy-tale," I agreed.

"I completely agree," an earthy little voice behind us agreed. Sarah Tickes put an arm over each of our shoulders, which, given her height, was a bit awkward and quite charming. "Always wanted to be a fairy godmother, but never had the opportunity. Then I overheard Paul going on about Juliette, raided his stateroom for the address and sent an owl with a Portkey."

"And just when did you overhear this?" Jessie asked, going a little red.

"I actually have Charles' brothers to thank for that," the older witch gleefully explained, holding up an Extendable Ear. "They make these in wireless now."

"Sarah!" Jessie looked more than a little indignant and a little nervous. Sarah Summoned what looked like a stiff martini and sipped it without a care in the world.

"Relax, dear, I can't speak a word of French. Took Italian instead, for the opera. Whatever you told Paul you and Charles were up to, I assume it has to do with watches and dear Paul didn't think the uppity old buggers and their sons would believe you were _training_ someone else."

"You assume?"

"It's a stepmother's _place_ to make assumptions, dear, just like I assumed Paul would be a much more interesting target for the old buggers' gossiping. They're worse than those old hens in Hogsmeade, really."

"If you can't speak French, how did you write the owl to Juliette?" I asked.

"I think you should write mysteries, Charles. Stepmothers are excellent at career advice."

"But apparently not the non sequitur," Jessie growled, knocking back the Riesling as if she wished it were much stronger.

"Did that wretched little German propose earlier?"

"He did." Jessie sighed.

"Oh, dear. I hope you were nice about it. Poor thing was practicing the speech in the gents' loo earlier for almost twenty minutes." Sarah regarded Jessie's look of shock and mine of sympathy as if it were perfectly normal for her to have Extendable Ears in the gents' loo and, in fact, most places. "I think his intentions, quite apart from being under his father's thumb, were more than a bit sincere. And I did like his attitude better than Selnikov's. That poor bugger had the gall to ask your _father."_

"What? When?"

"In the smoking car, just a bit ago. I have an Ear in James' breast pocket, just in case. You'll be happy to know, Jamesina, that your father managed not to choke on his brandy despite bursting into rather mean laughter at the very idea of it."

"Father laughed at him?"

"To scorn, really, which brought Papa Selnikov into it. The old bore then asked what was wrong with his son marrying you, at which point... James said you'll marry whoever you damn well please and they'd taken the matter up with the wrong party... which led to a couple of nasty insults ...and a rather smug crack that any clockmaker who owns her shop outright by her twentieth birthday can do as she pleases in private life and what a pity Selnikov still had to give his boy orders like an apprentice."

She seemed to be pausing every few sentences to smile and we realized she was listening in real-time to the argument as it occurred. "Oooh, and now Selnikov _père_ is trying to get his glove off to challenge James to a duel and -oh, how gallant, Nils Nielsen has broken it up."

"Which one?" Jessie asked.

"Eighth, the one from your class, though Seventh is holding Selnikov back from the sound of it."

"Do all the families number the heirs that way?" I asked.

"Only when they recycle names," Sarah explained, "but there's rather a lot of that, due to patent and license laws. Never let it be said that clockmaking was impractical as a discipline. Now Hans Prosser has come in and ordered a large brandy -oh, he's taking it hard, how sad."

She did not sound perturbed in the slightest at the poor German's plight, I should mention.

"I should get in there before somebody says something we'll all regret," Jessie sighed, that sense of duty and tradition more than evident in the set of her jaw and spark in her eyes.

"Don't you dare, dear, not until Nils stops being eloquent."

"Doing what?"

"He's just finished the most lovely speech about how the man to win a jewel such as you will be the one with nerve not only to ask, but to court you as –and then it got all clock-metaphorical. It was like something out of a romance novel where his character dies tragically in the end. Oh, and Lyon's asked Prosser why he looks so down in the mouth, that was a bit tactless."

"From him, I'd only expect it."

"No, it was Gilly Lyon, in with the gents and most likely smoking one of her awful cigars to justify being in the smoking lounge –but then, the Tact Fairy hasn't visited that whole family in well over three generations and the only way to be sure they show up to anything is to imply that they shouldn't come at all. And I mean that in the nicest way."

"Is he taking it hard?"

"Considering what he just told Gilly, yes."

"Oh, no," Jessie looked horribly guilty and sad at that.

"Dear Jims, you can't possibly accept every proposal of marriage you receive. For one thing, there isn't space in the flat for all of them. We'd have to put up bunk beds in the closets. And for another, most of them are totally wrong for you. Sympathy is all well and good, but you mustn't let feeling sorry for a fellow affect your better judgment."

"I know. It's just awful to see that hopeful look and then know you're going to be the one to destroy it."

"Better to destroy a hopeful look than your own life in the name of being polite. I don't suppose you're all that attached to your reputation, because a good scandal would go a long way toward cutting the springs on this nonsense mid-wind." Sarah sipped her martini again.

"What _would_ I do without your motherly advice?" Jessie asked, a little sarcastically.

"If your mother were here she'd cause the scandal herself just to give you a break. Siobhan could always be relied upon to approach life in terms of engagements, tactics and gaining the upper hand. Even in public life she was never one to let perfectly good terrain and ground cover go to waste."

"How would you suggest handling this?" I asked, more to remind the ladies I was there and willing to help than anything else.

"Why don't you accompany our Jims to the smoking lounge, keep up that absurdly obvious chemistry you two have going and then make sure she leaves before you do."

"Why do I have to leave first?" Jessie asked.

"Officially, it's because you need to get your rest for the masterpiece. In practice, it's a chance for Charles to play the prospective son-in-law scene with James."

"Scene?" Jessie asked.

"Oh, you know the trope. It's either the fellow her father likes least, but who has a great deal in common with him, or the fellow he pretends to hate but secretly has nothing but good thoughts for who usually gets the girl. That's generally how it goes."

"So…I'm to make a poor impression?" I asked.

"No, you're to make an excellent impression. James is just going to be crotchety about the whole thing. It's really not hard for him, the side effects do make him crotchety. You just have to show superhuman patience and continuous good cheer."

"He is awfully good at patience," Jessie remarked, blushing a little.

"Does the fact that I, well, actually _am_ a prospective son-in-law help at all?" I tried to be blunt. "I mean, if need be, couldn't I just, well, say so?"

Both women stared at me. Jessie went absolutely scarlet and the corner of Sarah's lip tilted upward into a smile.

"At this point, that might not be the best strategy, true or not. To do so would be to declare yourself a rival to young men she's known for years, which would both cause a closing of ranks against you right when you want it least _and_ render you subject to the younger clockmakers' pranks."

"I think he can handle _that_," Jessie snorted a little. "He has had…experience."

"That, and it'd make you look weak. Bringing an escort nobody's seen before, who's doing quite a good job of impressing your family, is one thing. Bringing an escort who puts his oar in purely to save you from awkward proposals –and yes, that is how it would look, makes it seem like you've found an inexpensive and rather unladylike way of compensating a bodyguard. Not exactly the best strategy, to my thinking."

"I suppose, though I have to confess, I really wasn't expecting this level of intrigue at a simple dinner on the way to a business event."

"You're a zoologist who writes books, so I'd imagine the shop talk is rather different. Your set is preoccupied with habitats, behavioral habits and evolved traits of known species and everyone has their own little specialty. Immortality is found in discovering a new species of naked mole-rat or what-have-you, not sustaining a business empire with roots going back multiple centuries, forging alliances to best strengthen said empire and ensuring that competitors have no opportunity to attack."

"Sarah, you're carrying on like this is international diplomacy. We're bloody clockmakers. I've thought for years that this sort of cloak-and-dagger, marriage-of-alliance goings-on was rank nonsense," Jessie scowled.

"And if making clocks was _all_ the Chronologie Mechanique did, you'd be completely right." Jessie made as if to reply, but Sarah raised an eyebrow and continued. "You forget, of course, that Aurors from every nation rely on their clockmakers for synchronicity and accurate timekeeping in evidence. Every train station and owl office relies on accurate timekeeping to maintain national infrastructure and no Healer can work without one. A sudden influx of subpar timepieces can and has been known to upset a nation's economy. Nobody questions the need for businesses, armies and even governments to import and export precision timepieces, simply because so very many technologies, social institutions and aspects of civilization presently rely on them."

"I still don't see…wait. Are you saying-?"

"I'm saying that in that smoking room are a lot of men who have fought chaos and anarchy with number-three jewelers screwdrivers for years, _won_, and never gotten a moment's credit. Naturally, among themselves, they must wish to preen a bit." Sarah sipped her drink. "And until you are told otherwise, and you will be, that is the reason for the Victorian attitude."

We considered this for just a moment before Sarah continued.

"Personally? I'd approach the most-eligible-maiden pretense exactly as if it were a lot of irrelevant old clockmakers posturing because this is the most excitement they have all year. Keep a vague smile, be dismissive of the action but not the idea behind it, and generally play the tolerantly amused daughter who thinks her father's old friends have been at the sherry again."

Jessie appeared to consider this.

"So basically a more polite version of how I actually do feel about matters."

"Pretty much."

"Sounds like a plan, then. First, though, I have some questions for you." Jessie looked stressed and more than a little sad. "Why didn't Father mention that I've a living grandfather on my mother's side sooner?"

"If I say 'you didn't ask,' you'll hate me," Sarah sighed. "Let's talk about this somewhere more private."

We left the ballroom and walked the short distance to James and Sarah's stateroom. There, the little witch explained.

"The truth of the matter probably has to do with your father. Failure to maintain relationships, including the complete omission of fairly crucial details, is a symptom of James' illness. I know this is painful for you, in the extreme, but you have to understand that your father is the way he is because of an illness. He was _sick,_ Jamesina. Right now, he is merely a bit under the weather in terms of that illness, but there will always be the possibility of relapse, and the condition can be fatal."

Jessie looked shaken at Sarah's stern tone and serious manner. I didn't blame her, especially as her stepmother went on.

"He would not be the first wizard to die of melancholy, or 'depression' as the Muggles call it, and what's worse, he also has something similar to combat fatigue, due to the way he lost your mother. He will never be entirely the person he was, and the ways his grief and sickness from that grief have _and_ _will_ hurt you and Ian, those are going to have long-lasting repercussions for all of you, and him in particular. Right now, the majority of why your father hates himself is not because of his illness so much as what the illness made him do. It's circular, ongoing, and very difficult to help.

"And I know it sounds like I'm making an excuse for him here, but I'm really not. To say that a depression victim, or anyone with a mental illness, really, has and will hurt his family, whether he means to or not, is simply being honest. It's like any other serious illness in that others are affected. The symptoms can even spread." Sarah sighed and I saw from the brightness in her eyes that just saying this was taking a toll on her.

"I'm not telling you this because I want you to forgive your father or rebuild your relationship to something besides that of board members of Tickes and Sons," she continued. "I'm telling you this because you are an adult and if you want to have any hope of remaining a healthy one, you need and deserve to understand why your father is the way he is, know the signs and be able to tell if you start to experience the same thing so you can get help before it gets as far as it did with him."

"_Is_ there any help for him?"

"Jims, I don't know for sure. He's made tremendous progress, he's functioning and at times I could never ask for a better man or a greater love. But then he'll relapse or experience a rough patch, and…well…they say, when you marry someone with a mental illness, you don't have a relationship with that person so much as with the mental illness. In a sense that's true, in that I have James, and I have what's wrong with James. Loving him has never been hard, but learning to love around his illness, even as I'm trying to help him with it…it's never been easy."

"I've wondered for years how, let alone why, you married him," Jessie put her hand over her stepmother's. "That sounds awful. What I mean is, well…"

"Honestly? It started as a loophole so I could treat him. I knew Siobhan would never have wanted him to suffer the way he was, and the only way to take control from the Healers to whom he'd been committed was to have the appropriate legal powers. I was too young to legally adopt him, obviously, and that left a marriage of convenience. I managed to get close enough to try something, and once I had him lucid and capable of making decisions, I explained the situation, and he agreed."

"You were his Healer?" I asked.

"Unofficially, yes. On paper, my specialty is burns and heat-related curses, as you know."

"You interned with the Aurory. I've seen your old uniform, with medals on it, in pictures."

"True, Jims, but what you didn't know is that there is also a mental element to Healing people who've seen action, especially when things like trauma and combat fatigue set in. I'm one of a very few specialists, and the field is not very old, or even taken very seriously. On the one hand, it behooves the Ministry to downplay our techniques' effectiveness and generally keep us as tacitly ridiculous as the Centaur Office, because if mind-Healers are just a joke, enemies of the state will never bother to get any of their own, to their detriment. On the other hand, a great many of the people responsible for classifying our work as a state secret did not survive the last war long enough to get the point, which is that what we do does work, and pretty damn well, across to the new leadership. The fun-poking and willful disavowal of the department, which was meant only as wartime obfuscation, has since become a widely-accepted notion that mind-Healers are at best a placebo and at worst a ridiculous Muggle-influenced waste of time."

"So nobody in Britain takes you seriously?"

"Almost nobody. There are some who do, like Alastor Moody and some of his protégées, but for the most part, we're a well-kept secret. Either way, nobody at St. Mungo's was willing to consider any of my techniques on James, and while I could have tried for experimental protocol, it would have taken so long, and with you and Ian the age you were, I wanted to try and get him back to something like normal." Sarah poured herself something that smelled of floor-cleaner and sipped it pensively. "That sounds too altruistic. If I'm being completely honest, I also have to confess to wanting to show those old sons-of-bitches that serotonin-reuptake-inhibitors and anxiety reducers bloody well work. So yes, part of it was for him, but part of it was for me."

"You _did_ get him sane," Jessie remarked, which, I think, was something she might not have conceded even a few months ago.

"Yes, but I don't want you to think I'm some magical fairy who wanted to heal your father and nothing else. There was plenty of ego, selfishness and sheer stubborn I'll-show-them involved."

"But don't the ends justify the means?" Jessie asked.

"I wonder. You see, I attempted a regimen of Muggle drugs. They were rather more primitive than what we have now, and I managed to get him first coherent, then somewhat stable. It was sometime after 'stability' that we started living together and appearing to the outside world as a couple. You were around eleven then."

"I remember it well."

"As do I," I agreed.

"Well, while we had to keep up appearances socially, for the sake of protecting my license and preventing an inquiry –because there were certainly enough elderly Healers willing to believe that the change for the better was the result of remarriage alone, the short-sighted gits," Sarah growled into her glass, "the truth is, for the first few years, we were simply friends who lived together. I helped James manage the demons in his head and he helped me pass for an explainable match. Working on timepieces has always helped him, you know. He doesn't seem to feel the pain so much when he has something to focus on, and teaching me how to blend in as a clockmaker's wife helped him a great deal. And I…I also liked it. Siobhan had always spoke lovingly of watches, and I came to understand why she admired James so as a coworker, let alone a mate.

"She was truly my dearest friend, you know. There wasn't a single battle, from the day I turned seventeen, when I wasn't her medic-on-call. She and the Commander were willing to look past my age, Muggle stepfather and fondness for stepping…how shall we say, outside the bounds of conventional wizarding medicine, and they arranged for me to get training with some of the best. I mean Healers from the old school, with combat experience back to Grindelwald's day and earlier. You wouldn't believe how exciting and _terrifying_ it all was, to have someone like Commander Jamesina Tickes believing in you, and it was mostly on Siobhan's say-so. I owe them _everything_."

"Wait…how could you have worked with my mother? I knew you were friends, but…" Jessie seemed confused.

"…Exactly how old do you think I am?"

"Twenty-nine…wait. You couldn't _possibly_ be-"

"Try thirty-eight." Sarah did _not_, it must be said, look thirty-eight. "Remember what I've told you about moisturizer and sunscreen?"

"Yes."

"Well, let this be a lesson to you." The older witch smiled. I could tell she was actually quite pleased. "Who on earth told you I was twenty-nine? The carefully-crafted rumor that I'm a gold-digging tart seems to be working even better than planned."

"Why would you want people to think-?"

"Because 'gold-digging tarts' whose husbands suddenly take a turn for the better, well, there's a very salacious and entirely believable explanation for the improvement. Slightly younger but still perfectly mature former medical officers whose husbands suddenly improve, on the other hand, that's an investigation and an ethics hearing right there. It helps that I was taken out of the last war fairly early on and wound up making my money in dermatology. You really thought twenty-nine?"

"It was the age everyone said you were, and…I guess I never really thought about it."

"I'm going to be cheered up all week by this, you know. Anyway…you've seen how your dad used to be when you were at school, and how he's gotten better over the years, if never entirely right."

"Yes. What's made him so much better now?"

"New medication and a new treatment, essentially. I had him on lithium and then I tried –well, suffice it to say, the treatments have gotten a _lot_ better recently. Even so, he's been making steady progress, and while we were just friends at first, with his health and our both missing Siobhan and the Commander in common…well…he did get better, and…"

"You really do love him, don't you?"

"To distraction! I've broken every code of ethics, violated I-can't-tell-you-how-many rules and laws and…one day I realized I was looking forward to therapy simply because I wanted to hear him talk. I found someone else to handle the talk-therapy side and the behavioral aspect, and just kept the physiological and chemical treatment my area, but by then…it's been a fairly normal relationship, apart from the whole secret-experimental-treatments thing, for roughly the last four years."

"You know, this does make so much more sense," Jessie patted her stepmother's hand. "You do know I'd have resented you a lot less if you'd _said_ you were Dad's secret Healer, right?"

"You were ten years old. I didn't want to burden you with keeping that kind of a secret…and I may have underestimated you at the time."

"Well, I did know you gave him medicine and that he started getting better the moment you came into our lives…but I've never really understood how that works."

"If you'd like, I can explain it in more detail. Basically, what I'm doing has been the standard Muggle procedure since shortly before you were born. Wizards, though… a lot of them don't approve of Muggle methods at all, and some of what's been working the best is flatly illegal in this country."

"But it works."

"It does."

"So how do we make sure Dad can stay on the treatment? Or does he need to? Is it something he'll someday get better from, or is it like Wolfsbane potion?"

"It's chronic like Wolfsbane, yes. I might be able to reduce or balance his dosage, but the therapy has to be kept up and he'll probably never go off-meds completely, but the side effects of the latest drug, I've seen research on something else that's in testing now that works exactly the same way, but with more manageable physiological symptoms. It's all to do with the mechanism by which the drug affects the serotonin –and I've lost you, haven't I?"

"Not at all," I interjected. "Essentially, the hormone responsible for feeling normal, he has a problem processing it, and the drugs help mix the potion in his mind correctly. It's like adding pondweed to counteract too much arrowroot."

"…While not entirely correct, that gets the point across better than I could without breaking out the textbooks, journals, diagrams and blood work, yes."

"_Blood work?!"_ Jessie asked, alarmed.

"I have to extract samples, very small, mind you, and analyze them, though urinalysis will also do between lab work-ups."

"…You really have been doing serious mediwizardry, haven't you?"

"Technically, _medicine_, but yes. I take this _extremely_ seriously."

"And you're quite sure…I mean, blood work, that just seems so…so arcane and Dark."

"I assure you, there's nothing Dark about what I do with it. The Muggles don't have the charms we do for examining levels of potion in someone's system, that, and our charms don't work on some Muggle medicines. So I have to do it the Muggle way."

"Won't Dad get scars, or an infarction?"

"You mean _infection_, and generally, no. I use a very small, very sharp hollow needle, which comes in a sterile packet and gets thrown away immediately after, so there's no germs or risk of infection. I even swab down the site with alcohol beforehand. And while he has a little bruise around the vein for a day or so, the procedure does not leave long-term marks…and you've gone completely ashen. This only sounds odd because you're a witch, you know. If you grew up in a Muggle household, you'd have had things injected _into_ you the same way since you were a tiny baby."

"But _why?_ Why would Muggles do such a thing?"

"To vaccinate the children, of course. Remember how, when you were twelve, one of Ian's friends caught dragon pox and your grandfather wanted you to go right over and play with him, so you'd get it young and have a mild case?"

"Yes, of course. And I never did get it because you made me wait three whole days."

"Well, Muggles _used_ to have sick children spread a thing around to the healthy ones, because once you've had a certain kind of sickness, it teaches the little cells in your blood how to kill it quick, so once had, you never can get it again. That's called immunity. The thing is, you can also take a little piece of the same disease and either kill it, weaken it or simply change it so it can't make any more of itself, put it inside someone, and that teaches their cells all they need to know to fight off the disease. So that person gets their immunity without needing to bother with the illness."

"Vaccination," I agreed. "We do it with dragons."

"Well, I knew there was something you could do along those lines with _animals_, but on people?" Jessie still looked pretty squicked-out at the whole idea.

"Still, it's better than dragon pox. Not a scar on you from that, not even where I used the needle after you went to sleep."

"You…but…why?!"

"Like I said, better than dragon pox. You also never got pertussis, diphtheria or tetanus after you met me, nor regular measles, German measles, mumps, rubella, smallpox –that one I had to specially order, but with all the traveling, it seemed worthwhile, chicken pox, pretty much all the poxes but syphilis, which really isn't actually a pox and which I don't think you'll be at risk of anyway…"

"And you did all this with _needles?"_ Jessie cried.

"Only when you were asleep, but yes, with needles. And no, you don't have a single scar."

"I don't suppose you have a needle for influenza?" I asked.

"Always. You have to re-do that one every year, and there's surprising demand for it. I think I've even got some with me…" Sarah fumbled in her black bag, which was, of course, rather bigger on the inside and had a small refrigerator full of various little bottle-looking things. "Yep! See, it comes in this little vial, and you just suck it into the needle, poke the person, then slip it gently in with the little plunger."

Jessie was absolutely chalk white, but I really hate getting the 'flu, and it seemed like a reasonable way to reassure my poor girlfriend that her stepmother was not an entirely mad scientist.

"I don't suppose I might have a needle of that? The 'flu gets me every year, feels like."

"Oh, certainly! You'll have to take off the dinner jacket and probably either roll up or unbutton the dress shirt, we do them in the arm…" Sarah got a few things ready and Jessie gripped the arms of her chair until her knuckles were white.

"It's okay, Jess. I've seen this done a hundred times."

"On _animal_s."

"No, actually, I had a needle for tetanus once after I stepped on a nail, as a little kid. We went to the Muggle hospital because there weren't Healers close by and…well, my parents didn't always have a lot of money, and the Muggle hospital doesn't cost anything if you cast a Confundus when they ask for your national health number. It only stung for a second and I never did get tetanus, so..."

"I knew I liked your mother," Sarah remarked. "Okay, Charles, could you give us a bare shoulder?" I already had my dinner jacket off and the shirt took but a second. "Very good. Now what I'm doing here is rubbing his arm with some alcohol. Iodine will also do, but that stains shirts, so I'm using this –and this isn't drinking alcohol, mind, just for rubbing on things to kill the germs. Now you see how this needle has a little cap on it? Means it's never been used. You never do use them twice, that can lead to all manner of problems, from the needle getting dull and hurting more to epidemics of truly horrific things. Before disposable needles, it was possible for a Muggle meaning to do nothing but good to accidentally infect whole populations with a completely different disease. So that sucked." Sarah shook the little vial a little, then poked the needle in and turned it upside-down. "Now I measure out just a few cc's of the vaccine itself, which I will then-"

"This isn't going to hurt him, right?"

"No, why would it? I mean, sure, there'll be a sore patch on his arm, but that's usually the extent of the side effects. In a worst-case scenario, he might have some very mild flu symptoms, but that's typically it."

"It won't…hurt his brain or make him different?"

"If he suddenly seems different, it'll be a matter for correlation, not causality. I've heard of Muggles who thought a vaccine made their toddler walk, simply because their first steps took place later the same afternoon as a shot. There's nothing in the data to indicate that-"

"A _shot?"_

"That would be the slang term, yes."

"Me first, then. If you're going to stick him with your crazy mad Muggle medicine, then you'll have to stick me first!" Jessie looked stubbornly serious, and a little brave. Knowing how little she understood injectable vaccines, and how weird they'd seemed to me when I'd first heard of them, I knew she was genuinely worried for my safety and meant to protect me even if it took a sample of the horrible technology itself.

"Okay," Sarah agreed, and before Jessie could stop her, she'd swiped her step-daughter's shoulder with the alcohol and quickly injected the needle's contents. "Don't worry, Charles, I have another for you," she explained, reaching into the bag. "But first, would you like a sticky bandage, Jamesina? I have plain ones and some with Hello Kitty on them."

Jessie looked at her shoulder, stunned to see a tiny red mark.

"I didn't feel a thing."

"Sometimes you don't. If you'd clenched up the muscle, then it would've hurt, but I'm getting pretty good at this." Pausing for a second, Sarah tapped Jessie with her wand, whispering a healing charm and removing the need for a sticky bandage. "Hello Kitty might not go well with formalwear."

"And now I won't get influenza?"

"Yes and no. Influenza is a bear to prevent because it mutates faster than –well, a really fast-mutating thing. All the versions of it that your flu shot protects against, though, those you won't get. You could still catch a new, mutated version, but it should be less of a health risk, because the protection from similar versions will make sure it's not as severe an infection." Sarah then injected my arm with a needle-ful of the stuff. I felt it a little, but I'd had worse.

"Wow. Thank you!" Jessie did seem a little cheered-up, though she still looked a little suspiciously at her own shoulder now and then.

"If you're interested, I also have some of the latest Muggle technologies in the precautionary arts. There's a needle for that, if you can believe it, that lasts for about three months, as well as the most charming little device that fits in the uterus and releases the proper hormones steadily for five years' worth of perfect immunity from inconvenient Nature. Definitely a worthwhile investment, I have to say, and I'd imagine you two could do with the peace of mind from multiple methods."

We stared at Sarah Tickes as she finished this extraordinary pronouncement, probably blushing redder than ever. "What?" she continued. "I can recommend a Muggle colleague for the actual consultation and any prescriptions. It's unethical to treat one's own family unless it's an emergency and, besides, I'm not a gynecologist."

"I…just…you know, I don't think anyone else's stepmother is as completely blasé about bringing up the topic."

"Not everyone else's stepmother is so averse to badly-timed grandchildren that she's willing to set aside the age-old feeling that children must only be told 'don't!' when it comes to certain activities. I know I would far rather know that you knew how to conduct them safely rather than bury my head in the sand until it was too late. I've seen careers stalled, shotgun weddings between two people who weren't ready and even some cases where existing children got the short end of the resources-and-attention stick because their parents hadn't access to the precautionary arts for reasonable timing and spacing-out."

"Me, for instance," I agreed. Sarah went a little white and Jessie glared at her.

"I'm sorry, Charles, I didn't mean-"

"Oh, I know you didn't. Doesn't mean that the situation described doesn't apply to my siblings and I, though in our case, it was more a matter that many Muggle birth-control methods were not well-understood to be safe or feasible by most witches and wizards when I was born, as well as the fact that my parents really and truly wanted a girl in addition to all their sons. Ginevra's worth it, too. I don't consider myself to have been shorted on love or attention. Resources, to be sure, were sometimes a little strained, but Mum is one of Nature's economists and I know I'd never have been able to live so well on royalty checks alone if she hadn't taught me how to manage my money carefully."

"There's also the remarkable Weasley fertility," Sarah pointed out.

"That is true," I nodded. "It's one of the reasons why Dad made a point of letting us learn all we could about ...what do you call them, the precautionary arts? My folks were aware of such things by the time Percy showed up, but, of course, my twin brothers are a cosmic joke of the universe and showed up anyway, then after a decent interval, Ron and Ginny followed in accordance with proper planning. They were quite straightforward about it once I got to an age when knowing the importance of such matters was, well, important."

"So you're…amply supplied?"

"Absolutely, on knowledge and…well, materials. Two or more complementary methods used, every time, no exceptions; always have proper materials on hand because one never knows, mind the expiration dates and while a gentleman must always be amply prepared, it is also correct to make sure a lady is comfortable with the theory and practice, via discussion of same. Any relationship not in a sufficiently advanced state for said discussion to occur is not sufficiently advanced for said activity. And there are always creative ways to accomplish the goal of said activity with significantly reduced risk, if one is comfortable with them."

"…Now I know you're quoting Jamesina," Sarah grinned.

"Verbatim," Jessie agreed in a voice so tiny that I could hardly hear her, especially given that she was holding a knuckle to her lip and shaking a little in that 'trying not to laugh' way she had.

"I did leave out the bit about flavored –ow!" She elbowed me to forestall a bit of disclosure too far and poured herself some of the floor-cleaner-smelling stuff.

"So you can see, Sarah, we're completely safe and reasonable, you know far more about our lives than is strictly necessary and all is well."

"Well, I still think you might want to consult with my Muggle colleague, simply because there are additional health benefits to a hormonal method, it reduces some of the worry should a more ready-to-hand variety spontaneously fail and, of course, if you don't mind my saying so, Charles-"

"My family IS pretty notorious in that area. I'm fairly sure it's only due to the precautionary arts that I haven't got new siblings arriving to this day."

"And I've never heard of twins running in my family, so it's entirely possible Jamesina is just as susceptible," Sarah agreed. "I'm glad to hear you're both well-informed."

"This is the most awkward conversation in the history of conversations and I would like to burrow into the floor right now," Jessie announced into the glass of floor-cleaner.

"No more awkward than if I told you just which of the Muggle technologies your father and I find useful. For instance, after the twins were born I had this splendid little thing called an IUD installed and it's just –huh. You _do_ share your mother's taste in Scotch, Jamesina."

"…I would much rather hear about my parents' and stepparents' taste in alcohol than in…other matters. It's a peculiarity of mine."

"Oh. I suppose that must be a bit awkward to imagine."

"Quite."

"Well, being medical myself, I just get so used to being perfectly frank with people about such things."

"And a grand thing it is that you told me what I needed to know when I was eleven and a half. Further specifics, however…"

"I understand. Theory absent personal testimonial."

"If you could."

"Though I must admit I'm curious about what Charles said about flavored-"

"_I will send you an owl with a gift-certificate to the proper shop and you can find out for yourself if we could please ju__st never discuss this again EVER__."_ Jessie replied quickly.

"Point taken. Anyway, you wanted to know a bit more about your maternal grandfather, and why we didn't tell you he's still around."

"Yes."

"Well, the fact of the matter is, we didn't know he was still around. Siobhan had cut ties with her family when she turned seventeen and it wasn't until this past week, when old Samuel McArran got a thing called the Internet and decided to try and look his estranged daughter's family up, that we realized you had additional family."

"Didn't he know that she…"

"He received the standard Ministry next-of-kin notification, as well as a bequest in your mother's will. I believe, however, that there was some other reason why he was not in touch. Specifically, I don't think he was ever told that she'd had children."

"How could anyone miss becoming a grandparent?"

"When your child hasn't spoken to you in years? Fairly easily. Your mother had, he said, gotten in touch with him shortly before her accident, and she'd mentioned she was pregnant, but then he got word of …what happened so soon after, I don't think he realized you and Ian had been born already."

"But why?"

"There was an acrimonious divorce when she was a teenager, worse than the usual is all I ever caught, and though she seems to have been quite a loyal daughter, in her own way, I think she was also quite aware that close contact with her Muggle family would make them a target for the Death Eaters. There may be more to it, I'm not certain. But the old fellow is alive, and he expressed an interest in meeting you and Ian."

"…Okay." Jessie smiled a little. "I think I'd like to meet him, too. He's a jeweler, right?"

"Yes. McArran's Jewelry and Timepieces."

"He's a clockmaker?" Her eyes lit up.

"No, I just believe he sells and repairs them. But he does do bespoke jewelry and custom settings still."

"I wonder…" Jessie picked up a paper cocktail napkin, found a pen and began to draw. After a moment or two, once it was clear that she was off in her own little watch-design world, I poured Sarah a little more of the floor-cleaner.

"Make sure she drinks at least fourteen ounces of water tonight," the mediwitch reminded me. "I don't think you'll get back to the party, but she mightn't have quite the tolerance for Scotch on top of Riesling that her mother did, and a hangover really would not do for the masterpiece."

"I will."

"And I apologize for being so very blunt about the precautionary arts."

"Not at all," I still blushed a little, but not that much. "It's good to know that you care about her and my future, and I really do appreciate the …flu shot it's called?"

"It should help."

"I like knowing someone who knows about Muggle medicine as well as the wizarding variety. I don't think magic's quite kept up with things, somehow."

"Well, much as I hate to even imagine it, in the event things get any worse with You-Know-Who, I'd imagine having a combat medic and battle-fatigue expert in the family can't hurt us."

"It couldn't hurt."

"Might want to give her some Pepperup potion in the morning, too. I don't think she's ever _had_ a hangover and the first one's always ridiculous."

Sarah Tickes was not the kind of mother that I'm used to, but she really didn't do a bad job of it that evening.


	31. A Painting

A/N: Sorry it's so short, but I wanted to be sure you had _something_new in time for the holidays.

Chapter Thirty-One: A Painting

I didn't care about those old men in the Chronologie Mechanique anymore, let alone what they thought of me or who they thought I should marry. Once I completed my masterpiece, they would have no further say about me or my life, and I found that I didn't even care about my reputation or what the wagging tongues of the old hens in Diagon might say about what I'd done.

Or what _we'd_done. Whatever.

Funny how, when people completely misunderstand something, the people on the girl's side say the man's a cad and she's a fool, the people on his side say she's no better than she should be and either way it's the girl who gets the dull end of the bayonet? Yet another reason to take their opinions and chuck 'em all.

I put my hair up in a fashion that wasn't likely to get in my way during the masterpiece trials, even the gold-casting or plating phases. Lord knows that at home I singed my hair often enough to justify the new fashion for short hair and even those little combs I'd seen on some shopgirls, but why wear a lot of frippery on your head when there's always a growing charm to put your hair long again after a bit of a fire? Besides, _he_ liked my hair long and his was the only opinion I cared about anymore –and what a freeing feeling it was. I even shivered a little remembering…well…a nice bit of remembering.

We'd shared a single compartment on the train, overnight, barring only a short stop near the Scottish border to take care of a bit more paperwork than the usual Customs rigmarole, as it were. The scandal would be fizzing the minute anyone noticed, but I found that I couldn't muster the proverbial tinker's damn, even as he saw that I was ready and offered his arm out of the stateroom. We didn't even bother to watch and be sure no one saw. It didn't matter a fig.

Part of this shocking boldness was happiness making me giddy and therefore less than usually sensible, but part of it was definitely and clearly his influence. It seemed that if he hadn't shown me all the ways a woman could blush last night and then taught me to enjoy them all, I'd never be able to so much as take his arm the way I did as he escorted me toward the Guildhaus without going redder than currant wine.

I expect that last has shocked you, but I don't even care about that. That day, I had everything I'd ever wanted and longed for, and once I conquered the last fiddly obstacle, I would be able to claim the full joy of it. And what was reputation, compared to happiness?

Not that I'm all that especially known for caring about my reputation. A woman in my profession can hardly be expected to ignore the talk, but after a certain amount of self-denial and suffering for things one hadn't even done, it was positively delicious to actually _have_ some sins for them to object to and not to care in the slightest.

We entered the Guildhaus and he took me to my appointed seat. I almost wished he'd kiss me right then and there, for luck, but rules are rules even on such a day as it was for us, so I made do with the Continental kiss on my hand and a last look in his eyes before names were called for the trials.

And then, for his sake, I put him out of my mind.

I can make a clock or a watch from nothing but lumps and scraps of metal. I've done it before, many times, but to make something truly perfect, a design out of my own head, with no notes or paper, that takes nearly every ounce of my concentration. Only at the stages where I must wait, when the alloy melts, the sand-cast rough cools, the mainspring hisses in temper until cool enough to touch…only then could I think of his hands tight around my wrists, the rough kisses that would have felt stolen if I hadn't wanted them taken, the…

_All_ of my concentration is needed. I felt my thoughts snap back to the watch in my hand with a jarring harshness more than once that made me bless the heat of the little forges and crucibles for justifying a drop of perspiration or a pant in my breath when my mind strayed back a night.

Finally, I realized that the watch, if it passed the five tests and was truly a masterpiece, would be his, and that let me clear my head.

For him. It had to be perfect _for him. _There was no other way to stop the thoughts of those new memories sizzling into the cold water of my rational mind like hot metal, the hopes for our future shaping up like these bits of gold and steel, or even the way we just…fit, like these tiny gears. Our minds had been so for so very long, our hearts had followed and the night before had been like releasing the mainspring we'd wound since…well…

It also can't have helped that I was sitting the masterpiece on about two hours of sleep, as if I haven't shocked you enough.

So I made the watch for him. It was to suit him in every way. His favorite ideals of design, the very shape of his wrist –for I wanted it to be modern in every way, and as ever-present and enduring as what I felt for him, and that meant the latest design and the examiners' prejudices and preferences be damned. I ground colored glass to powders finer than what ladies wear on their faces and soldered wires half the diameter of a hair onto the face, then used a brush you could have made up a mouse with to put a paste of ground glass into the little spaces the wires left and heated it all into the hard-as-gemstone intricacy that was the traditional cloisonné he loved.

Every number seemed to grow out of the branches and knots of a tree and its' roots at the center of the face, and as I shaped the hands from gold wire, I shaped them with a chisel smaller than a number zero-zero-three screwdriver to make them into branches themselves. And it was a tree, a red-golden tree with shining numbers for fruits in every jewel color he loved, the branch for minutes long and stiff though it looked supple, the hour branch nearly as strong as the one on which we had hung a swing, that time…the second hand (for I had vanity enough to include one even in such a design as this,) was like the whip-thin branches of the tree in the field where I read his letters that horrible six months we were apart.

For the band, I chose rich, red-brown Corinthian leather stitched over the edges and center span of some common, tough field webbing in the dusty khaki we knew too well. Nobody had ever done a band of leather and webbing at once before, but it suited him, both as a reminder of the hard and rough times we'd endured in dusty khaki and a symbol of the brilliance and value I saw in him, like the leather-covered books he loved. I set an inch-and-a-half-wide crystal with just enough convexity to be useful for magnification or heat when opened into a steel-and-gold case I'd brushed so as not to shine under fire.

And by some miracle, the examiners of the Guild understood. The tough, elegant-under-fire outer case, the organic and colorful beauty of the face and hands…with the tightest, most precise movement I'd ever done, it was good enough for high honors, the ribbon and, though he never would have asked it, I felt that it justified his faith in me and the love we shared.

I signed the Guild register of masters as 'Jamesina Tickes' and a whisper went through the hall just as he took my hand. Easier than having it put into the papers, really, since there are rarely reporters at Gretna Green, and to be fair, it was the first time I got to write down my married name. He was due a portrait painted because there hadn't been resources before, so we both had them done in 1919 though he'd been a master for as many years as he was my senior and as long as we'd waited to belong to one another.

And here I am, in the Guild's portrait hall. I will always be twenty-three here, still in my uniform with three captain's stars on the shoulders and not the sleeve, since we had to avoid shining while we protected the witches and wizards caught up in the Muggle war. I will always be this happy, and since I don't age and only began to talk when I died out in the world, I will always be either in my frame or in my husband's across the hall. Here, we have been married a day, though I know in my heart that it must have been much longer out there where our real selves lived. If one has to be a shadow, let it be one as happy as me.

Have I shocked you, then, great-granddaughter?

Or is that look on your face as familiar as mine looked in the mirror that same morning? I hope so, even if we have still got the same first _and_last name. Your time is a lot better than mine for women's rights, I do have to say.

Don't answer. Not for many, many years. You look about my age in your painting, so I'll have a good long time to admire and be proud of you. Then we can have a talk in a hundred years or so, not that time seems to pass for me.

Like what they did with your frame, by the way. High honors didn't always have the little band of blue in the oak.

_The painting of then-Captain Jamesina Switch Tickes, c.1896-1980, is one of the stranger in the Portrait Hall of the Chronologie Mechanique. For one thing, the subject is one of only thirty in military uniform (and only four of those women,) and of the thirty is one of only five in actual battle dress. But perhaps more interestingly is the tendency of the subject to be caught in the frame of Ian Gardner Tickes III, 1892-1946, in what can only be described as a wholly indecorous posture, or in the frame of Siobhan McArran, later Tickes, c.1955-1980, where the subjects are frequently observed playing cards. The c.1995 portrait of Jamesina W. Tickes, 1976-, resembles both to a certain degree, but has not, to date, moved or spoken, given that the subject is presently alive._


	32. A Discussion

Chapter Thirty-Two: A Discussion

"That was fun," Jessie sighed. "Even the bit with the _whissh_ and the _pff-pff-pff_ and the part where I broke my foot." She gestured alongside her sound effects, and I understood what she meant. "And you did a great job with that charm before Sarah could fix it for me."

"Well, it does have some side effects."

"You bet! Mild dizziness, euphoria and feeling somewhat like being drunk. S'okay. I like it. It's like how champagne feels, but without the Regrettable Lapses in Judgment." She leaned back across the bed, which put her head and shoulders conveniently alongside my lap. I stroked her hair and she grinned at me. "Not that I've had lapses in judgment around you before."

"I don't know, whacking that Bludger the way you did was pretty bloody regrettable."

"We won, didn't we?"

"You broke your own foot with the ricochet."

"Accep'ble margin of risk."

"Not in Quidditch, it isn't."

"What? You _said_ I should play more like a Gryffindor, Charlie."

"Gryffindors play _bravely_, not with a willingness to strategically fracture extremities in the interest of winning. I have to hand it to you lot when it comes to sheer calculated ruthlessness at the game."

"Slytherins get injuries too."

"Slytherins try to injure others. Ravenclaws risk themselves like self-aware chessmen. It's one of the most disconcerting things about their playing style."

"Ian's made a pretty damn good career of it," she argued, not quite pouting but still with a little resentment at being called out on something immature.

"He's learned to tone it down a notch, and he wears a hell of a lot more protective gear than you had on."

"…Boots next time?"

"Full kit or you're not playing. You can't be trusted."

"Can, too. I just wanted to show those guys that I'm not scared to play anymore."

"Acrophobia is nothing to be ashamed of. Going up on a broom like you've been at the whiskey and playing like it's for the bloody House Cup is a _little_ extreme."

"I was…I was happy about passing the masterpiece and sorting out that whole unwanted-proposal problem. I needed to blow off steam."

"Yes…and I'm very glad we won, but I never want to see you take a physical risk like that."

"Have I mentioned that you're not the boss of me? I haven't needed to up until now, but you do know you aren't, right?"

I tensed, thinking this might well be the beginning of a fight between us, but then she smiled. "Unless it's in here. _Then_ you can be the boss of me. A lot. And in many ways. Unless it is _not your turn_, in which case..." Jessie clutched a fistful of my shirt and pulled me down toward her even as she sat up to level with me. An inch from my face, she grinned. "Well, then _I'm_ the boss of _you_. Right?"

She…managed to persuade me. With…with chocolate biscuits, the nice kind. I like biscuits. We both do.

Awhile later, once the most obvious effects of my analgesic charm had worn off, she conceded that I was right about not taking an extremely high risk of injury even if it meant winning a bloody Quidditch match. She also explained that she really hadn't known the Bludger was going to ricochet as it did, never having played anything but pick-up games, but that playing the 'I meant to do that,' attitude was easier than looking weak in front of her old clockmaking schoolmates.

"I will also concede that it is a highly effective and _terrifying_ tactic, the way you handle injuries."

"Terrifying to you," she agreed. "It's not fair of me to make you worry."

"No, I also mean terrifying to the rest of the boys. If I saw a beautiful Valkyrie on a broom with her foot smashed, her face cut and bleeding, her arms bruised and a mad, triumphant grin of blood-purchased victory as she waved a beater-bat aloft, I would be pretty damn terrified. I was even a little anxious about the implications of some of our other activities, knowing you can take injuries and still keep coming like that."

"…That was the worst pun ever."

"What do you mean –_oh_. I didn't mean like that, but…well…"

"I have…interests, as you now know. Some have a little in common with what could be considered Dark, but only if the participants are not absolutely consenting to and okay with what occurs. I also have a fairly high tolerance for pain, which, I'm told, is partly genetic and partly something that's just to be expected when one starts working with sharp tools, molten metal and assorted miscellaneous pointy things at an extremely early age. You get hurt often enough, and you get a little bit used to it."

She shrugged and I noticed that there were a few little white pocks and lines on her wrists here and there, all in places her watches normally covered. Molten metal and pointy things…

"Neither of these things mean that I have any intention of doing things to you to which you have not consented or which you would not enjoy," Jessie continued. "And while I may, eventually ask you to experiment with some activities along that line, a tolerance for pain does not mean nor should it imply a fondness for it. Primarily, my interests deal with experimenting in relative levels of control during certain activities, and as an unavoidable safety requirement for said experiments, either subject can call a halt to the proceedings at any time, for any reason." Jessie sighed again. "I know it seems strange, but I'm determined to be…sane about this. And safe. And it almost goes without saying consensual. If I were to…do things to you that you didn't want, well, the definition of what that is doesn't change just because we've been a little …creative in the past. There's a word for a person who does something to another that they don't want, and that's not me. Ever. No matter what."

"I…have a hard time imagining something you'd want to do to me that I wouldn't want."

"Supposing you'd rather sleep at the time because you had to be up early the next day."

"Point taken...but still, hard to imagine. Unless you mean…pain might be involved somehow?"

"Yes. I will _not_ hurt you. I know a lot of people assume that if you like to occasionally play with things like Madame Morrigan's Mistress Cuffs or the odd bit of unusual lingerie that you'll be breaking out the riding crops next and it won't be long until you're Body-Binding a village full of attractive young things to practice your Cruciatus. And it's not really like that at all. That's how a _crazy person_ handles this sort of thing, and perhaps because sane people have the sense to keep it behind closed doors, crazy people are the only ones thought to enjoy this sort of activity. Never mind that they're _doing it wrong."_

"I really don't see you as being the sort of person to use a pain curse on a spider, let alone me."

"Well, and neither is anyone else who likes this sort of thing with any level of sanity. It isn't about 'oh, I shall have my wicked way with you any way I please while you are tied up and there is nothing you can do, mine is an evil laugh!'" Even I couldn't restrain a grin at that. "It's about 'you are putting yourself completely in my hands and trusting me not to take unfair advantage of that submission while still depending on me to make that submission…very enjoyable.' Crazy people are just…well, they're abusing the privilege and giving the rest of us a bad name."

"Rest of us?"

"You don't know how scared I was of you realizing I liked this. I was pretty wrecked on champagne and that Riesling stuff from the train, plus whatever was in that vaccine thing when I did tell you."

"Jess, I was there. I _know_ how scared you were, especially after we'd had some Sober-Quik potion and you almost panicked I was going to think you were a horrible person. And it's not really something that bothers me."

"So you said…but I am aware of how this sort of thing is viewed. Someone once noticed me picking out a book on the subject and actually checked my arm for the Dark Mark before threatening to follow me until the glamour charm wore off and then warn my family."

"Glamour charm?"

"Most bookstores have some kind of security for their more grown-up inventory, usually an Age Line or similar, but others also have something for their customers' privacy. The Redferns have a random glamour charm generator like the bigger stores, but it caused problems, so they just started using identical wrapping for all parcels and packaging things from the special section prior to the register."

"So what happened?"

"Fellow shopkeeper cast a dispellment charm and asked the other customer to leave. The privacy rule in such shops is quite strict, either respect it or lose it. The shopkeepers can see through the charms, so if there's a problem they can handle it, but I'm pretty sure one could trust them with state secrets, let alone whose paperback novels have a little more rope than nudity."

"If it helps, I'd read a little about such things, too, I just hadn't seen enough to know if it was something I liked or not. There were one or two drawings of ladies tied up, but you wouldn't believe how many of witches in black leather with some poor wizard chained to a bed or similar and a naughty smile on her face as she toyed with her wand, or a thing to smack him with, or a lot of times a feather. Never did figure out what that one was for."

"Tickling, of course," Jessie explained, before going absolutely scarlet and shutting her eyes before speaking again. "Don't ask me how I know that. But if you're interested in something that involves pain, discipline or testing of boundaries, well, we'd discuss it and our respective limits long before we tried anything, if only for safety's sake, and if it turns out that you're not comfortable with it, this sort of activity is still a thing I can live without. My relationship with you…not so much. I won't risk you-and-me to try something…interesting _with_ you."

"I'm just still getting over the surprise of how, well, _aware_ you are of the various ways to experiment, and your…well…eagerness."

"Why wouldn't I be eager to try new things with you?"

"No, I mean…well, on the one hand, you still blush when the subject comes up in general and I know you…well, let's just say you had very little practical experience, but you're so…so well-read on the theory, I guess. You've brought up things I've never imagined doing, let alone done."

"…You _do_ know there's a secret repository of absolutely filthy novels in the Ravenclaw girls' dorms?"

"I knew the gents had one, but the ladies…well, actually, no, that doesn't surprise me so much as it hadn't occurred to me that you'd be as well-prepared there as in other subjects. I should have guessed, given some of what the Redferns keep in stock."

"You don't know the half of it. Sometime I shall take you to Nooke's Books and More in Knockturn. I'll give you a hint, the 'and More' doesn't _just_ mean a delicious coffee and scone for while you browse." She stretched out like a cat before putting her head on my shoulder and snuggling close. "And it's not like I'm ridiculously well-read on the subject, just swotting away on smut. But I did notice that witches and wizards have certain drives and needs, and since male company didn't seem particularly forthcoming, nor did I really have time for it with apprenticing, school, the shop… well, books worked. One could read a reasonably interesting story that had additional educational content, as it were, and that was more or less adequate to satisfying my own interest at the time. Just because you don't know the whole of what you're missing doesn't mean you don't still wonder, as I'd assume you're aware."

"Considering a few badly-drawn booklets that got passed around the Common Room in second year, yes. I take it you weren't just satisfying curiosity."

"Curiosity can be physical as well as intellectual," she explained shortly, as if that was _all_ to be said on the subject. It set _my_ imagination to racing, but she still tended to skip words and fill in with vague gestures, almost as if afraid of being overheard.

"And then later, once I met you and…okay, developed rather an awful crush…you're older. And I knew you…knew more. From actual experience, I mean. Just on the off chance I had any chance at all…I kindofwantedtoimpressyou," she stammered, in a voice so small that if she hadn't been close, I mightn't have been able to make out a word.

"I was very, _very_ impressed night before last."

"Really? I wouldn't have thought a half-hour of stammering and blushing followed by …well, I wouldn't think that would impress anyone."

"Not that. The fact that you overcame the blushing and stammering to mention what you wanted, that you were self-aware enough and good at what I will, for the sake of argument, call 'research' to know you wanted it, and that you trusted me enough to tell me –that was impressive. But I've known since before the dinner dance on the Trans-European that first night that you had the potential to be…well…pretty darn amazing at this. I'd never been asked what I liked before, doesn't that sound crazy?"

"Seriously?"

"Really. It just…well, nobody else before did very much _talking_ on the subject beyond 'have you taken the potion' and 'was it good for you?'"

Jessie seemed to earnestly consider this, frowning a little as she thought.

"In that case, I think I could reasonably understand my capacity to impress you. It's not skill, it's adaptability. Even inexperienced apprentices can do a good job with a highly specialized custom piece meant to exactly suit one person."

"Well, and the _way_ you asked…" I was a little uncomfortable there for a second, but Jessie snuggled a little closer against me and I felt better. "Where _did_ you hear of that?"

"I actually have the book at home, disguised as an arithmancy text. It actually is an instructional manual. They make those."

"The author has my eternal respect."

"At the risk of being a complete cliché…am I improving at all?"

"The first time was more than adequate. That last time was the best I've ever experienced, and I mean that honestly."

"…I'm really working on trying to not blush and stammer as we discuss this. The books all seem to indicate that we'll get better at this the better our communication is, whether we're doing anything out of the ordinary or not."

"I _love_ books."

"I love men who write them." She kissed me. "I did wonder why the scenes in your last novel were, so, well, nonspecific, but it does leave a little more to the imagination."

"Avoiding the censors, mostly," I explained, almost stammering a little. "I know I said I didn't have much experience with this sort of …specific thing, but I find that I'm…well…I think it's safe to say you've succeeded in sharing an interest."

"I see," Jessie smiled, a little hesitantly, but with the blush starting to really fade. It was astonishing, to watch the timidity and anxiousness blurring away as the same kind of confidence she had in her timepieces, that desire to give precisely what was asked and work tirelessly until all demands were met, grew in and overpowered the novice. "So…would you like me to untie you first?"

"Don't. Not unless it's your turn already."

"…Can it be?"

And then we ate biscuits. Again, yes. Biscuits are a very popular snack, after all.

Clearly, we did not get very much done that evening. However, as the train stopped to take on coal or water or some other thing that trains enjoy stopping for, it did occur to me that I was rather hungry, and Jessie reminded me that there might be a murder on the Trans-European this second time around, so we got dressed, Jessie in a pretty gray-green dress that shimmered a little and me in my black tie again. We talked as we got ready and I found out that she had started her trip with three or four new very dressy outfits her stepmother had helped her select, then when the two of them had gone shopping in Switzerland, she'd picked up a few more things, as well as presents to take home. I agreed that Ian would probably like the hooded sweatshirt she'd chosen for him, but questioned whom the enormous box of separately-wrapped, prism-shaped chocolate bars was for.

"…Everybody, I guess. I got enough for your brothers, and the Redferns, and I thought I'd take a couple by Fortescue's, and then you might take some by your mother's next time she has you home to supper. It just occurred to me that if I bought it wholesale, I'd be markedly less likely to forget anyone. Besides, it's not like leftover chocolate is really all that much of a hardship. I could eat a bit, and this kind does go well in brownies, if worse comes to worse."

"I don't believe I've ever heard of there being leftover chocolate. There sure never was any at my house."

"Then you should send your folks some of these with my compliments. I bought enough to give just about everyone I know stomach-ache from too many, just to be sure I didn't miss anyone."

"Did you know my brothers Bill and Percy are allergic to chocolate?"

"Really?"

"Yep, gives them both a stomachache if they have more than a little bit. It's why Mum makes cinnamon cookies as well as chip ones when she makes any. And the gingersnaps, well, those are just because Dad likes them."

"I've had her cookies once; the twins brought some by. Only gingersnaps I've ever had that weren't hard enough to chip a tooth. Wish I'd known, too…next trip I'll make a point to get peppermints or something for the non-chocolate-eaters."

"Bill is very fond of peppermints."

"I got these little cinnamon mints in a tin, they're supposed to be stronger than average? Will some of them do?"

"You don't have to bring back presents for every one of my relatives, Jess."

"But I like having people to bring back presents to," she replied quietly. "All my life, I've only had my uncle, my grandfather, Ian, Great-Uncle Emeric whom I've only known through letters and, to a certain extent, my dad. That was all. And then Sarah came, and then the little twins…so now I have _some_ family, but it's not like yours."

"Mine is larger. And redheaded."

"There's also…I don't know. Maybe it's just me, but…well…remember when your mother asked Fred and George and you and I over to dinner a few weeks ago? We had just come in and she was helping us off with our coats when Bill and Fleur came in, totally unexpected."

"I remember."

"And your mum didn't even blink, she just smiled that smile and said 'Oh, look, Arthur, it's our Bill and his young lady!' as if an extra two people for dinner were some kind of grand treat. And later, when you and Bill were losing at Parcheesi to the twins and Fleur was asking me about a watch for her sister's birthday, I saw your Mum was knitting. 'It's a sweater for our Harry's Christmas,' she said, as if a good friend of her son's was just as important to her as any other one of her children. And later, when your Dad and I were listening to that Wizarding Wireless bit about the new theoretical charm-stringing theory, she said 'Our Hermione would know all about that sort of thing, we should ask her about it next visit.' She just…well, _adopts_ people. Once you're a friend of her children's, she considers you _hers_, and looks out for you and makes you sweaters and is proud of you when you know things. I love that about your Mum."

"Really?" I asked. "I never thought that was anything particularly special; she does that all the time and I'd never noticed it."

"Well, to you, it's probably no stranger than Tuesdays, but to me, that's just wonderful. Nobody's ever described me as an 'our' before, and only very rarely as 'my' anything. And even then it's only sister or daughter or friend, which is nice, but…well…"

I zipped up the back of her dress and put my arms around her from behind for a snuggle, which made her sigh like a contented cat. I wondered for a split-second if clockmakers could purr, as she leaned her head on my shoulder and pressed my hands even tighter around her.

"Mine," I announced possessively.

"And mine," she agreed, slipping her hand into mine and kissing me on the cheek.

Shortly thereafter, we went and had dinner. Not biscuits. It was the nice black-tie sort where partway through the soup course, the instructions are handed out for the murder and the plot is underway by the fish. That's how they do the evening murder on such trains. It doesn't typically get solved until fairly late at night, but any time you want, there's your choice of drinks.

There _was_ a nice murder on the train, actually. It seemed for all the world like the rich young heiress who'd stolen her best friend's fiancé and then been followed by the jealous and slightly dotty friend onto the train was going to be the victim, but then it was her house-elf, and I was so flummoxed by how anyone could have such an obviously Agatha Christie plot go differently that I almost missed the second victim's multiple errors in the description of his profession or the very large number of owls he sent. And if Jessie hadn't noticed the ink-blots on his cuffs when we found his body, we might never have guessed the motive or who'd done it.

But we did, and apart from a tense moment when we were suspects and an even tenser one when somebody thought Paul Deroulede's new fiancée had done it for hire, it was a jolly good murder –which is to say, one that's quite hard to solve. Jessie and I put our identical theories into the guesses-box together before the detective did his summation and were happily rewarded for being right with champagne and a small silver cup each. That was nice, especially considering the only other three people who guessed it were a pair of retirees who just about live on trains, we think for the exclusive joy of murder-solving, and of course, Juliette Deveraux, who had, I think, enjoyed being suspected of paid assassin-dom just a little too much. She was rapidly becoming a good friend of ours, being just as quiet as Paul was effusive, just as serious as Paul could be frivolous and both of them sarcastic enough to account for an increase on French export tariffs in snarky comments. They were the sort of couple whom you had to watch before taking a sip of anything, lest one of them say something and send said drink right up your nose.

Suffice it to say, it was a plot I doubt even dear old Dame Agatha would have considered, though that'd be more due to when the dear lady lived than to a lack of creativity. And the comments Jessie and Juliette made at Paul's expense when he had the Gallic chagrin to be scandalized by it were perfectly hilarious. The Deveraux-Derouledes, (or whatever their name might become once they actually got around to marrying,) got off at the junction before Paris and we waved goodbye with promises to send an owl soon and similar.

We were still chattering away about our favorite mystery stories, which, of course, I prefer in books and Jessie likes best as radio plays, when the train steamed into London. The sun was just beginning to come up and shone through the glass windows of the station in that foggy, not-quite-awake-way the sunrise sometimes has, and rather than go to bed just to get up again, we'd stayed up and…talked about mysteries. Yes. And having coffee, of course. The coffee on the Trans-European Rail is remarkably good, you know. There were even biscuits. We were so busy eating biscuits that it took a few knocks for us to get our luggage together before the train stopped. Very good biscuits, too, the absolutely non-metaphorical, comes-in-a-tin-and-you-eat-them kind, certainly not some sort of half-hearted attempt to clean this up for the censors, that would be quite silly.

Yes. We did have biscuits quite regularly at that point in time.

Jessie'd only just stepped off and waved a last goodbye to Isambard elf when a serious-looking pink-haired witch strode up.

"Madam Chairwoman Tickes?"

"Tonks!" Jessie replied, perking up considerably. I recognized Nymphadora then. She'd been in Gryffindor with me, but of course, she'd changed her hair…probably a lot. It was a very plain and businesslike brown at the moment, as opposed to her usual more vibrant hues. Then Jessie coughed, straightened and seemed to realize how stern Tonks looked. "Auror Tonks," she clarified with a serious nod that didn't quite cover the smile of a second ago.

"We have a situation, ma'am," Tonks announced direly, pronouncing the title to rhyme with 'farm' rather than 'ham.' "There has been an incident in Diagon Alley. Two dead and two missing."

"Good lord!" Jessie's smile was gone. "Where?"

"Fortescue's, ma'am."

"_No! _Who would…?"

"We are uncertain as to the nature of the attack at this time, ma'am. One of the deceased does appear to have been part of a group of miscreants invading the premises."

"_What happened?"_

"As far as can be told, a party of unidentified miscreants, motive unknown, entered the shop after hours and attacked the occupants, who have disappeared."

"But…no…did you say two missing?"

"Two out of the four occupants, ma'am," Tonks explained, removing her hat and twisting at the brim a little. "Ms. Fortescue-Price defended the premises most bravely and succeeded in fatally repelling one of the attackers, but Mrs. Fortescue and Florean are missing."

"There is a search underway?"

"Naturally, ma'am, with descriptions and a reward offered via wireless, and twenty of the best working day and night."

"When did this happen?"

"Earlier this evening. Ms. Fortescue-Price succumbed to her injuries on the scene, and we have only one survivor in custody."

"Are you interrogating?"

"No, ma'am…you see… it's the little Fortescue, Florean's great-nephew."

"Loren?" Jessie's expression of shock and anger softened into plain sadness. "Oh, no…that means his mother…"

"Both of his mothers," Tonks confirmed sadly. "Ms. Price-Fortescue passed away a few days ago in St. Mungo's. Cancer, they said. They were staying in London with the elder Fortescues while arrangements were being made."

"Both…oh, no. The dear little chap."

"I thought you might need a moment," Nymphadora sighed, clapping a friendly hand onto Jessie's shoulder and squeezing it in a friendly way. "Will you take him home directly, then, or shall I arrange for an overnight observation by the Healers? I'm told he's all right, apart from some shock and the natural grief…"

"Take…home…the what now?"

"…You didn't know?" Tonks' hair flashed from a soft brown to an electric green for a split second. "Oh, dear."

"Know what? Does being Chair have some sort of orphanage responsibility I wasn't told about? I don't mind having the little fellow over at all, he's a darling, but surely there's someone…well…actually qualified…"

"With the passing of his mothers, whose papers have not yet been located, that leaves the question of his custody to Mr. Florean Fortescue. He being missing, the will was checked, and he quite specifically names you as not only guardian of his great-nephew, but co-executor of his will."

"He _what?"_ Jessie ran a hand through the loose not-quite-fringe that had escaped her ponytail with a sigh and a crinkle to her forehead that spoke of stress upon stress piled faster and heavier onto the shoulders of an only-just-Master Clockmaker –and one who was only-just-twenty-years-old, to be specific about matters.

"I…I would've thought you knew."

"Florean didn't see fit to mention _that_ part. I knew about co-executor because he told Abby Flourish and I that he expected us to outlive him and Abby had a good laugh but I just thought it was awfully morbid and said okay…" Jessie sighed again, and looked back to me. I had gotten my small suitcase off the train and set it next to her trunk, but now I slipped my hand into hers, simply because it seemed the most helpful thing to do. "Charlie, did you catch all of that?"

"I did," I squeezed her hand a little and looked to Tonks. "It's terribly sad, of course. The poor kid."

"You can, of course, _refuse_, ma'am," Tonks pointed out. "Custody would then revert to the next appropriate party, and in the absence of any other living relatives, the boy would become a ward of either the Ministry or Her Majesty's what-have-you, depending, of course, on who spoke up first and held on longest. It's always so difficult in the cases with one parent Muggle-born."

"Has he any other living relatives?" I asked.

"None that we've been able to track down in three hours," Tonks replied, "but it's hard to say."

"Was his father…in the picture?" Jessie gestured vaguely.

"Not as such. I understand it was a donor scenario, anonymous. It would take some time to look him up, and in just about every case, he'd…well…for legal purposes, the assumption is that the boy is a complete orphan until we're told otherwise. This investigation may take some days or weeks…or years, as the case may be. I'm told there's a half-Muggle-born custody case from the Seventies that's still going on."

"How is that possible?"

"…Bureaucracy is a funny thing, Madam Tickes. I'm sure you've heard of superfluous case metal?"

"In some inferior designs, yes, such a thing might happen."

"I'll be blunt. Muggle-made mass-produced garbage the Chinese wouldn't approve of. Quartz and a battery. That's what your tax Galleons buy, when it comes to family-law cases. The centaur office is better funded and while the witches there manage to spin straw into gold on a regular basis, they're presently working with three pieces of hay and a drinking straw. They make it work, but it's not always fast or good, and even cheap often eludes them."

"You can only pick one, in government service," Jessie nodded ruefully and recalling the old saw. "I sometimes manage two, between fast, good, or cheap, but bureaucracy…and he'd just come and live with me?"

"Until the official custody hearing, yes, and then there would be the opportunity for challenges and similar, fitness as a parent, a home study. The usual."

"How long might that take?"

"In that case, much faster, I would think, than sorting out a magical-Muggle custody spat. The straw-to-gold social workers would have rather more straw in that case." Tonks tried to look cheerful and succeeded only in looking like a person who, having informed one that while the fire destroyed the building and the smoke and water from putting it out destroyed what few possessions which survived, there were still some leftovers in the building's fridge that weren't all green and fuzzy yet. "Point is, Jess, there's a little kid here who's just lost everyone, maybe forever. I don't place good odds on Florean and the Mrs. turning up alive and well, not in these You-Know-Who cases."

"It was…" Jessie went ashen.

"The corpse we recovered of the one attacker had a Dark Mark in the right place."

"Have you identified him? Perhaps there's a chance that-"

"_He's missing most of his head,_ Jess," Tonks' abrupt tone became admiring. "Say what you will for the late Ms. Fortescue-Price, she had some _style_ about her at the last. Brave as can be and fought like Firewhiskey going down, may she rest in peace. Ever hear of a Muggle thing called a Thirty Thirty Winchester?"

"Can't say as I had," Jessie looked a little alarmed.

"I'm going to ask Sam Redfern to stop by and confirm the identification tomorrow, she knows about Muggle things and could tell us for sure that the weapon we found did it, as well as, you know, what the weapon is. But I'm guessing it's a Thirty Thirty Winchester all right. I read a Muggle book that had them and this sounds like just the thing. Looks like the drawing on the cover, too."

"Is that a kind of gun?" I asked.

"I think they call this kind a riffle, but yes, it is," Tonks sighed. "Horribly brutal to look at the work of, but considerin' what _her_ wounds looked like, I think a shot-head is comparatively merciful. Shouldn't underestimate Muggle methods of self-defense."

"Excuse me a moment," Jessie said quietly, and then in the most ladylike and graceful fashion one can imagine, she stepped over to a nearby rubbish bin and horked like a cat with a hairball. Then she took a belt from a hip-flask I think Sarah gave her, spat it out, and came back over just in time for Tonks to finish a perhaps overly-descriptive description of the Thirty Thirty Whatsit.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, I am fine," Jessie replied, though she still looked rather green. "I know I'll have to come and observe the body at the inquest, but if it could wait until such time as I've gotten used to…such things, I'd appreciate it."

"We have a sheet we use, to cover the…missing bits," Tonks explained.

"Thank you. I'll be taking my nephew home now, if you could take me to him, please."

"Your…ma'am?"

"Loren Fortescue. I'm certainly not going to have him calling me anything like mother, not after he's lost both of his so horribly. Considering I'm just a hair too young for the job anyway, I think a sensibly vague title like 'aunt' should suit," she smiled wryly. "And that way if there are any nasty little questions, I can rely on gossip to see an elder brother who plays professional sport and remains resolutely unmarried, a spinster sister with her own shop and room for an apprentice, add two and two so it makes five and draw their own wrong conclusions."

"You'll take him?" I'd never seen an Auror look so relieved. Nymphadora saluted again and was off like a shot, partly, I think to conceal moistening eyes and other womanly sentiment at a touching speech, and partly before Jessie could change her mind.

"You're quite sure, Jess?" I asked. She seemed to realize something and went momentarily white again, then set her jaw in that very assured way she had.

"What else can I do, Charlie? He's all alone. I know what it feels like to lose a mother, and I wouldn't wish the 'straw-into-gold' system on anyone. Maybe a Muggle relative will be found soon, or perhaps Florean might turn up safe and sound. But in the meantime, there's a little fellow who needs some kind of home, and I'm the person his great-uncle picked for the job."

"Why _did_ he pick you?"

"Haven't the vaguest. Florean always had an inflated idea of my capabilities. Knew my Mum and such…gods, I'm already thinking of him in past-tense. Mustn't do that, now. But…do you think you could find some way to be okay with this? As my…as what you are to me, is this a thing you'd be okay with my doing?"

"I support you completely, in anything you do, you know that," I took her hands in mine. "But you're overworked as it is, are you quite sure this is something that you can do, without running yourself ragged? A kid is a lot of work, and a grieving, shell-shocked kid is going to be even worse."

"…That's rather getting to my next question. I mean, I can declare myself the little fellow's Auntie, take him in, raise him as best I can…but a little boy is going to need some sort of male influence around the place here and there. I grew up with practically nothing but male role models until the age of eleven or so and look what a mess I turned out. Ian's fine, but he's only home a little bit of the year. And your twin brothers…well…the least said about their influence, the better, though I'm rather counting on their being able to cheer him up.

"What I guess I'm asking is…if I can be an Auntie…you wouldn't have to be an uncle, not right away…but all of a sudden I seem to have acquired what they call 'baggage.' Is this something you can take? Because if you can't, you need only say so now and I'll call the Muggle authorities to take him and I'll just pay for some nice foster family until his relatives are found or he gets to school age or whenever. I have enough money to make even social workers move. And…as much as I feel this responsibility is mine by rights, I can't ask it of you, nor would I be willing to give you up to take it on. Say the word and I'll stick him with a nice nanny in Hogsmeade to keep you…though…I'm not sure I can avoid being involved a little."

"You'd drop him to keep me?"

"In a heartbeat," Jessie was as pretty as she ever looked just then. "Oh, to be sure, I'd resent you for it, but if it were a choice between being his custodial adoptive auntie and…whatever I am to you, I'll pick you every time. Of course, I would hedge that by being a non-custodial fairy-financial-type-godmother, because duty and honor are still a thing, but…you might want to hurry and speak up, because I can't make you any promises once I see him and I swear I think Tonks means to bring him here."

"Jamesina," I almost never called her by her full name, but that was one time I did, "let's pick up your nephew and get him home. You can explain me as the fellow who isn't his uncle yet but will be as soon as I marry you, who'll look after him when you're busy with work, read to you both before bed and who will teach him Quidditch when Ian's not home. I wouldn't love you so much if you weren't the sort of person who says 'yes' when duty calls. And I think you'll make a great mother…or custodial adoptive auntie, as the case may be."

"Oh, _you…"_

There are few feelings as nice as your beloved's arms twined about your neck and several soft kisses, and there's a lot to be said for a smoky railway station on a cold and frozen winter morning, with the snow starting to fall. Things may be staying darker for longer outside, but right there, between the two of you, things aren't bad at all.

Of course, most people have a significantly longer interval between biscuits and becoming the custodial parent of a seven-year-old, but that's clockmakers for you.


	33. Some Silver Lining

Chapter Thirty-Three: Some Silver Lining

There is a certain school of thought, common to popular culture, which holds that all women, by some kind of natural instinct as omnipresent as skin and as useful as thumbs, have innate maternal qualities which somehow 'kick in' within moments of their being given the responsibility of caring for a child. Even the gruffest lady lorry-driver, the fiercest Boudicca-style lady warrior or the most prim Oxford bluestocking will immediately remember the proper way to look after a child and overcome all obstacles through sheer force of character, usually in time for the child to pen a saccharine memoir about how perfect their unexpected mother-figure was. No matter how unfeminine, how unmatronly or even if the woman in question is actually, for the purposes of making things amusing, male and of the roguish bachelor persuasion, she or he inevitably succeeds at winning the child over and charming old ladies with their mysterious 'way with' children.

This is the most complete pile of horseshit I have ever heard.

I had no bloody idea of how to be a mother when I took custody of my nephew. Hell, I _still_ haven't got a very good grasp of it. Grandfathering, that I know how to do, uncle-ing and sister-ing I'm on pretty solid ground with, and if you really press me and give me some time to think and send an owl for instructions, on some good days I can just about manage step-mothering. But other than that, just about anything even remotely mum-like that I ever succeeded with in my life was either A. completely bloody improvised or B. done on the advice of Molly Weasley, who is mother enough for Great Britain, when it really comes down to it.

But with a good idea of how uncles, grandfathers and older brothers do business, as well as the whole 'being female' thing, I figured I could just about manage 'Auntie' as a job description.

I was, of course, wrong in many ways, but considering the kid isn't dead yet, I like to think I rose to the occasion a little bit. People don't expect quite as much of aunts, let alone aunties, which is, of course, the catch-all term for any woman older than and even remotely interested in the welfare of a child. It covers a multitude of sins, from otherwise inexplicable love-children in pre-war novels of more than usually revolting sentimentality to genuine aunts to the sort of plucky spinster who takes in children more or less as the plot requires and then succeed in being nauseatingly whimsical and improbably successful at everything, including acquiring a love interest with the absurdly cute orphan's help. Then people start bursting into song and then, as Sam Redfern says, there's nothing for it but a flamethrower.

There was absolutely no bloody bursting-into-song that first night.

"Loren?"

"Madam Tickes," he sighed, in that curiously flat way extremely tired children do when they have felt all the feelings they can be expected to feel and are just spoiling for a good cry to let it out.

"I…erm…you can call me Jessie. Everyone else does."

"You said that the other day. When you helped me make a clock."

"Yes, I remember. With seriffy numberals," I recalled, trying to smile in the completely bloody ineffective way that a grownup whose actual memories of being a child are buried under layers of sedimentary trivia and is therefore as emotionally sensitive to a grieving child's needs as your average dustbin.

"You _don't_ need to make fun of me," Loren growled.

"Was _not!"_ I retorted, in the way a grownup who is either dredging those childhood memories up to the surface or operating at a natural level of innate immaturity. "It was a good clock. You've got talent."

"I'm _seven_, not an idiot," Loren scowled in the way very tired, very stressed and very intelligent children do when they want to be both complete assholes and devastatingly adorable at the same bloody time.

"Do you think I'm patronizing you?"

He thought for a moment and I realized he needed a second to figure out what 'patronizing' meant.

"…_Yes!"_ he snapped a second later with a glare that for some inexplicable reason made me want to smack and cuddle him both at once. "My mum's dead. I don't care if you're trying to be special-nice to me, it's not going ta' work!"

"Well…I'm _not,"_ I snapped in the weakly-defensive, 'this-is-too-much-for-me-too, can't-you-tell?' way that incompetent aunties have. I heard Charlie stifle a giggle behind me and felt a bit reassured. "I was just trying to bring the conversation around to a certain point."

"Yeah?"

"_Yeah,"_ I crossed my arms and glared right back at the precious, red-eyed little bugger, who had clearly been crying only when the Aurors left him alone and doing a decent job of hiding it, except, of course, that his sleeves were only so absorbent. I felt a warm hand on my shoulder, glanced back and saw Charlie…not quite smiling, you couldn't smile when a kid was in that much pain, but he did give me a look of approval, as if to say 'go ahead.'

So I did.

"You want to live with me and make clocks, kiddo?"

Abrupt. Sudden. Almost brutally to-the-point.

And yet, it somehow, magically, _worked._

"Yes'm," Loren replied, albeit addressing the remark more to his shoelaces.

"Well, _that's_ a relief. I thought I'd just have to insist on the live-with-me part if you _didn't_ want to, and without the clocks part, I don't think we'd have fuck-all to talk about. "

The only sound that may have echoed through the horrible silence that followed that…most motherly of remarks was the silent roar of three different mothers in the afterlife, including mine, going "Damn it, Jess!" and, just possibly one great-grandmother who thought it hilarious. Even Charlie didn't react, at least not audibly from behind me.

As, inexplicably enough, did Loren.

It started as just the tiniest little giggle, and then it broke across his face like the first sunshine of a miserable stormy day.

"You _said the eff-word!"_ he chortled.

"Yes, I completely bloody did, didn't I?" There is a certain point in every parent or guardian's life when they just say 'fuck it' and do what works. I hit mine in uncommonly record time. "Clockmakers and, in fact, most tradesmen have different rules about cusswords than most people. When we are injured or otherwise in pain, we are absolutely bloody well allowed to cuss just as hard as we like. Guild rules."

"I'm not allowed to curse," Loren explained confidingly. "My Mum…" and then he looked down through his dark glasses at his little hands and began to cry, "and my Mama too. They never…I wasn't…"

And because I couldn't think of what else in the world to do, I crouched down and hugged the poor little chap as he sobbed.

"That's true, that they never _did_ let you curse," I explained, patting his back as he cried into the shoulder of my coat. "But they're gone, and you're in pain now because of that. Pain of grief counts, and you're a clockmaker's apprentice now, so go on and bloody well curse if you feel like it. Curse 'til it feels better. I'll never tell."

I…may have been crying a bit myself, not that it'd have mattered, given that he couldn't see my face from nose-deep in my coat lapel.

"They killed her," Loren sobbed. "They…"

And then followed the most incoherently angry, tear-filled tirade of impotent, furious kid obscenity ever heard, though, to be fair, my coat caught the majority of it. He pounded his little fists and cursed and cursed, ran out of words, repeated himself, then finally subsided into tears. Somewhere along the line I kept my arms around him and stood up, lifting him off the ground, and he fell asleep there as Charlie and I took him home. At some point in the cab, Charlie passed me a handkerchief, then held my free hand as the sleeping boy clung to me.

Tonks and another Auror followed us into the shop and upstairs, at first for what reason I couldn't tell, but after a moment the other Auror explained that the rules required at least a cursory inspection of the living quarters, and I said I couldn't blame them. I do suppose they like to check, to make sure orphans in temporary custody don't get shoved into the under-stairs cupboard or something else Dickensian and awful, and damned if I'd have questioned it. The other Auror also had a teddy bear and a little blanket that some well-meaning charity provided to Aurors so they'd always have some on hand for any children caught in a bad situation, and what with Loren already asleep, I just tucked them into bed with him and hoped he'd at least not be offended by any adult assumption that he might need such a thing. I also took his dark glasses off, folded them and set them on the nightstand by his alarm clock, which I left off. I've known enough people who wear glasses to know where they generally go at night.

Still, as I flicked on an old nightlight that had been there since before I was even born and gently closed his bedroom door, I made a mental note to go over to Fortescue's as soon as the crime-scene was clear to check around for any similar items of his own, and for any clothes. Tonks overheard my thinking-out-loud and said there wouldn't be much that survived the small fires left by hexes and things, but I still knew I'd be going by to check for him. I didn't want Loren to lose anything else, but I also didn't want him to have to see his home in that state.

"Cup of tea, ladies?" Charlie offered gallantly, putting a hot and perfectly the-way-I-liked it cup into my hand as I came down the stairs.

"Yes, please," Tonks accepted, because we were more or less friends by that point, and the other Auror hesitated a split-second before agreeing. I'm not sure what the on-duty Aurory protocol is for tea, but we _are_ British. I gestured to the chairs and they sat down at table just as I slunk into a chair and took a good long belt of the delicious tea. It was hot enough to make my teeth sting just a little and I relished it, anything to make that horrible mix of numb-and-sad go away.

"What do I need to know about his medical needs, school schedule…anything of the kind?"

"Well, he's not eleven yet, so he'll still have home lessons. I think your plan to teach him clockmaking is just top-hole," the other Auror, who struck me as a bit of a tit, said admiringly.

"Medically, he does need to be seen by a Healer about as often as any normal kid, with additional appointments for his eyes. I'll ask the receptionist at St. Mungo's to owl you a schedule," Tonks explained.

"Very good, any medications he needs to take, or anything like allergies or such that he can't eat or shouldn't play in?"

"None that I know of, save a little hay fever," Other Auror explained, looking into what I assumed was his file. "You can give him a little Pepperup for that, or-"

"I've got bloody hay fever myself and so does my brother, I know how to treat that one," I retorted a little curtly. "Sorry, it's been rather a stressful night."

"I would imagine. And I really do think you've been a brick to take all this on, Madam Tickes. Just to say, though, the boy's language-"

"Was exactly what I'd've said myself under the circumstances, maybe a _bit_ cleaner," Tonks corrected her colleague, whom, it occurred to me, was almost certainly the more junior of the two, and definitely not the same sort of wands-and-wits battle-hardened kind of Auror that Tonks and dear old Mad-Eye Moody were. This was the precinct matron, parking ticket, 'oh, dearie, let's get you a glass of water and a clean hanky' sort. And that would've been fine, had this occasion been anything close to the kind of thing a glass of water, clean hanky and patronizing smile might help. "You got him to cry, Jess. None of us could. If they can't get that first grief out, the denial can last for weeks."

"What order do the steps go again?" I asked.

"Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance," Charlie spoke up. "Was it just me, or did he get to anger already?"

"And rightly so, the poor little thing," Other Auror clucked over her tea like the completely jam-and-Jerusalem tit she was. "He was already a delicate child and then to have such a loss-"

"Shut up, ma'am," I growled, setting my empty teacup down with a cold click. "All due respect, if I hear you describe the boy like that again, I'll ask your superior to assign another officer."

"Madam, I-"

"How are your folks doing?" I asked her.

"…They're fine, but I hardly see what that has to-"

"Well, mine aren't. I lost my mother when I was younger than Loren there and my father went clinically insane for nearly a decade afterwards. I was brought up by my widowed grandfather, teenage uncle and, from age eleven, my stepmother. I also heard 'poor little thing' more times than I care to mention and if I hear anyone call that brave young man upstairs anything close to that, I'll…I'll forbid them the premises. I don't want to hear 'poor,' I don't want to hear 'little' even if he is and if you call him 'delicate' I'll bloody _show_ you what delicate feels like."

Charlie, it should be mentioned, poured me a second cup of tea during this speech and slid over the tin of biscuits.

"But Madam Tickes-"

"My job is to raise that boy, and though he may be grief-stricken and in a state of traumatic shock for the moment –and I will grant you 'little' though not in his hearing," I rubbed my shoulder where I'd carried him, "I will not have anything so bollocky useless as pity weighed onto him so that people who don't know how he's feeling at all can feel like they're being compassionate. Pity won't do a thing except slow him down."

Tonks tried to pat my arm and calm me down, but she only succeeded in making me angrier. Very luckily, I've learned a way to dress someone down without raising the volume of my voice, just the tone.

"If you absolutely need to mention his unfortunate circumstances in any situation where he might overhear, and I consider that to include the entirety of my jurisdiction in Diagon, I want the phrases 'brave,' 'bright' or 'bearing up well, considering' to be the beginning and end of what is said about him where he might hear it. Even if it's a damn bloody lie, and I don't think it is, even now, I will not have you pitying my nephew aloud. Think it if you like, but you'll keep a civil tongue in your head or _face me."_

"Biscuits, anyone?" Charlie asked, and as I shot him a 'what was that for?' glare, I realized exactly how he was looking at me, and blushed a little. It had been a decent speech, if I did say so myself, and that Auror was being a silly ass.

"Oooh, chocolate for me, thanks," the dreadful Other Auror accepted, gleefully taking a dipped one, biting it with some pleasure and grinning at me in an entirely annoying way. "You know, up until you said that, Madam Tickes, I had my doubts about you. That brave young fellow's in damn good hands or I'm buggered raw." She stuck out a hand to shake and was suddenly a decent person. "Leticia Bones, Ministry of Social Affairs."

"Jamesina Tickes, clockmaker and Chair of Diagon," I replied, shaking her hand and deciding that she merely possessed 'horrible tit' camouflage for misleading the gullible, and what a tactical skill it was. Come to think of it, I think she'd been in Ravenclaw, senior in my first year, but I wasn't going to admit the connection until –yes, there was the school handshake.

We were friends.

"Now, I do want to warn you against going full fairy-godmother. The temptation to buy kids a load of kit when they've had a loss and are in a new guardian's custody is always pretty strong. He doesn't have a lot of clothes that we know of, so you can get him those, but apart from that, try not to spend too much or you run the risk of them both turning into complete brats and thinking you're trying to buy their love. A nice new thing now and again is fine, but bear in mind always that you might not have him forever and if his next guardians haven't the money you'll be sending him from feast to famine."

"Good square meals only when it comes to kit and things," I agreed, nodding and writing it down.

"Though, of course, don't hesitate to get him a good suit or something he's never had, if it's essential to the social circles in which you move. The goal is to be as normal as possible, so whatever would be normal for any other nephew or younger brother or child of yours, that's the protocol. If you start to think you should spend some money because he's had a rough time, you may want to check yourself and be sure you aren't spoiling him."

"Makes sense to me," Charlie nodded. "How about food? Does it all have to be home-cooked and mum's-Sunday-roast typical, or can he eat out now and again?"

"Whatever you normally eat, he normally eats now, though you do want to try and have it be nutritious at least some of the time. If he has a few favourites from home, you might try your hand, but don't expect to be able to re-create everything he misses. That's pretty damned futile even in our easiest temporary-custody cases."

"Oh, good, because while I like cooking, I do work and we do eat some take-away," I helped myself to a biscuit.

"Incidentally, I'm assuming that you two are a couple?"

"Yep."

"Yes."

"That's another thing. So far the file we have on you doesn't indicate that you're the type to keep a turnstile in her bedroom, but you do want to be aware that children may get used to things one way and then react when those things are changed. If a frequently-visiting or even cohabitating adult in a committed relationship is your normal, then that has to be his normal, too, but constant male turnover can be rough on a kid his age, so…use discretion in how much you let him see. 'Stability is good, instability is bad.' That sums up a hell of a lot of this job." Leticia had another biscuit also and Charlie topped up her tea without being asked, which seemed to make her smile. "Still, you do have to strike a balance between what's best for Loren and what's best for making sure Loren has a sane and mentally healthy guardian, and if that means there's a stable boyfriend in the picture, then that's just fine and don't let the old biddies tell you otherwise."

"Also, I trust you're aware of the family Loren was used to?" Tonks asked.

"Of course. Two mummies, doting great-uncle and great-auntie, spent a lot of time here in Diagon to be closer to St. Mungo's, both after their house-fire hurt his eyes and then for his…I forget which one goes by Mama and which by Mummy, but one of the two was having treatments for cancer, a battle she lost pretty recently. I hadn't heard when."

"It was this past Friday," Leticia sighed.

"He's lost his family in a weekend, Jess. Hard road ahead for him, and for you, but I think you've got this," Tonks thumped my shoulder in a 'hard luck, old bean, let's get another pint into you' kind of way that it was hard not to find incredibly comforting. She had that kind of stiff-upper-lipitude which, while a little incongruous with her electric haircolors and moderately flamboyant choices in fashion when she wasn't in uniform, still somehow managed to put everyone at their ease and made it seem as though any minor world that falls apart really does fall together again.

Being reassured in any way by Nymphadora Tonks was always kind of like a 'chin-up, mates, we have your back' lecture from a Spice Girl. You just somehow know, despite the bright colors, platform shoes and hair in unusual colors that a fine old patriotic institution is on your side and wearing enough sequins to take out just about anyone who might come up against you. Petula Clark would also suit the metaphor, or maybe a dance-remix version of Vera Lynn. It was the delightful mix of the Brave Old Regiment and punk-rockity Girl Powah that somehow, just…_worked_.

Thinking back to that night and the half-hour or so of advice from Leticia and Tonks, as well as the sense of being too terrified that one was going to bollocks up the life of a poor innocent kid –no, a brave young man and damned if we'll call him anything less, that one barely had time to process the loss, let alone grieve…that was really the night the War started. The shop window, the little incident with that psychotic Lestrange woman, those were just tin hats and barrage balloons, as Mad-Eye and his old crowd would say. Actually having your first apprentice cry himself to sleep on your shoulder because his mothers were dead and his great-uncle and aunt missing…it was our Dunkirk, really.

And damned if I wasn't going to rise to the occasion and auntie my way through it, competent or not.

I sent the Aurors home with orders to come get me as soon as the crime scene was cleared and the remains of the attacker ready to be identified. Then I wrote out and sent two notes with Mrs. Miniver, one to Sam Redfern, requesting that she be present to help identify the Muggle weapon and consult with me on one or two matters, such as the 'reassure everybody' speech it would almost assuredly fall to me to make; and another to my brother Ian, briefly explaining the situation, demanding that he owl me back just to make sure he was alive as under the circumstances I was a bit panicky (I actually said as much, given that he hadn't been home when we got there,) and asking that he please come in quietly whenever he did, as well as a good broad hint that something of a breakfast nature come the morning would be greatly appreciated, though not essential if it wasn't convenient.

Min fluttered off in her punctual way as I carried my trunk up to the corner of my bedroom and told Charlie not to be daft, of _course_ I wanted him to stay the night. It only took a moment or two to persuade him that while no, I was not okay, not in all honesty, but if he wouldn't mind just being around, with his usual wonderful self, until after, oh, maybe breakfast the next day, I'd be markedly closer to 'okay' if not vastly improved and back to my usual self altogether. He seemed to accept my explanation of what I required, given that he provided it at once and without question.

When one goes from independent spinster to custodial parent in one 'lost-two-friends, maybe-forever' night, a bit of cuddling and a few kisses are absolutely essential, at least for me. Leticia's remark about 'what was needed' for one's own sanity had made an impact, and I lost no time in letting him know how much…well…it wasn't just a matter of just appreciating him, not after that point.

I'd realized that I genuinely needed him.

It's one thing to comfort a hurt and grieving child, but it's quite another to do it when the man who told you real, human stories about the mother you never knew and the sweet lady who brought you fizzy drinks and a new book when you had the dragonpox were both missing and presumed dead. I couldn't have hugged Loren or been able to comfort him at all, even in the ridiculous, sweary half-assed, can't-believe-that-worked way I did if Charlie hadn't been right behind and then immediately beside me.

It's one thing to like someone, love someone or want someone, but to need them is quite another, and that scared the hell out of me, but there wasn't much I could do about it then except ask his patience while I held onto him and wished the world would shrink down to just the two of us the way it had on the train for just a moment or two more so I could cope with the rest of it. Funny, I don't think he minded it, my needing him, and seemed to understand that I did, even though I didn't have the nerve to explain that I did right then. Still, for just a moment, the world shrunk down, and I was safe.

Of course, a moment later Min was back. She had a single note in Ian's handwriting:

_Jess,  
Heard about Fortescue's. Samantha and I are fine, as are both Weasley twins and all the other Redferns. Was having supper with Sam's mum and dad in Diagon when it happened, got out of the restaurant in time to help put the fires out afterward, but didn't see much, still, Aurors kept everyone for witness-statements and then after that, we decided to Floo Sam's parents to Hogsmeade, just because. Saw the Weasley twins, they were helping as well, but decided to Floo to their mum's after statements just to save her a heart attack. Hope you and Charlie are well, rough to come back to something like that, how's the young Fortescue? Isn't he the one you helped make a clock, day you left?_

_OH, and HOW DID THE MASTERPIECE GO?! Sarah and Dad must still be abroad, as I haven't heard anything! I know deaths and war orphans calling you auntie are serious business, but still, concerned brother and wager-placing triplets would like to know. Also, how was trip? All things going well with C. and/or the P.A.'s? Still have the H.H.D.P. speech ready in case you need it._

_And I'll order a lavish breakfast with all the trimmings DELIVERED, say, around ten-abouts? Whether you passed it or not, sounds like you could do with better than cinnamon buns. I BET you passed. Can't wait to see you, Sis. Be home soon. Don't wait up for me!_

_Love,_  
_Ian_

So I hastily scribbled back a reply:

_Ian,_

_That's 'Mistress Sis' to you! Blue-band high honors and everything, you'll have to have a great brotherly brag to the other fellows sometime, plus collect on any outstanding bets as to how I'd do on it. As for the P.A.'s, suffice it to say that if you were betting on THAT, I do not want to know, but there doesn't seem to be any need for the H.H.D.P. speech ever and C. is better than good. We played Quidditch and our side won. Why are you asking me about the P.A.'s or need for same, anyway? Is it ANY of your business, or is this just siblingly curiosity?_

_WAIT, YOU HAD DINNER WITH SAM'S PARENTS?!_

_…I'll discuss the P.A.'s and use thereof if you will. See you soon!_

_Love,_  
_-Jessie_

Charlie watched me zipping away with the Think-Notes quill and gave me a hug from behind that almost transliterated an audible purr into the note.

"Do you insist on the archaic idea that a boyfriend has the right to read his girlfriend's letters?"

"No, nor fiancee's, nor wife's, for that matter, unless you'd like them spell-checked or want to share a funny bit or something."

"Oh. Well, look at this," I showed him Ian's note, and my reply.

"The P.A.'s…oh, yes. And that must be the 'Hurt Her, Die Painfully' brother speech, he's referrin' to. You know, some time Ian and I must really get together and compare them. I have a splendid one myself if I do say so, but it's never too late to add in more adverbs and things."

"But yes, Ian and I do, in a very general and vague sense, discuss such matters, always have, but if you're not comfortable with that, I'd be delighted to stop."

"I discuss such things in a very vague and general sense, kind of 'things going well?' 'yes, quite,' sort of sense with my own brothers. The only thing that surprises me at all is that you're of mixed genders and somehow manage to discuss them…wait." A deviously inquisitive look came across Charlie's face. "Is this, just perhaps, partly why you came to me without practical experience, but with enough theoretical research to be quite well-prepared?"

"Partly? It's a _huge_ part of it. Ian described the sexual attitudes and related jokes from of some of his housemates in school, possibly in an attempt to be brotherish and warn me off the male sex in general, and I was so bloody confused by it I started researching on the topic just to keep up. And then it was so intimidating, I compensated with research, and then when he caught me researching the only way to keep him from teasing me about said reading was to treat it as no more shocking than Arithmancy texts…as much as was possible, that is. I do still blush horribly when anything related to my own actual practices or preferences comes up. But I can discuss whether a particular bit of smutty media is any good or not, and in some detail, and to the extent that that helped matters…well…"

"I need to buy your brother a pint of something. It doesn't especially matter what. But pints are most definitely in order."

"Why? To… _seriously?"_ I frowned a little. "You're going to inform him that you _approve of results?"_

"I am only going to comment on the subject once, _ever,_ but in that comment, I intend to notify your brother that his forthrightness and sensibility in discussin' matters of a sensitive nature with his most brilliant younger sister has led to said lady's possessing remarkably sterling qualities not only as regards matters related to the precautionary arts, but in the application of theory to practice, such that I do not ever expect to have any interest in any other female in that area of human activity ever again, and to compliment him on his foresight and consideration."

"You'll make him blush so hard he risks a stroke."

"Yes, true. You do both have that tendency. But then he will never, _ever,_ be able to tease you about it again without turning into Mr. Tomato Head."

"…I keep forgetting that you _are_ an older brother and know their wicked ways," I observed, happily contemplating this clever plan. "It sounds like I might also need to have pints with Sam Redfern, at which point we will probably discuss shoes or whatnot while gesturing and giggling with alarming frequency down the bar and just out of earshot, purely to make you two blush more and look anxious wonderin' what we're talking about."

"Yes. Dinner with her parents already."

"Sam always did move faster than I did, but she's never once been serious enough to bring a fellow home, as it were. There's probably an interesting story behind this."

"We must avoid asking, if only because they'll be trying to avoid asking us how our weekend went."

"Well, until the past couple hours, best one I ever had."

"Really?"

"Really, really."

That made him smile.

"Also, when you mentioned the reading-the-letters thing," Charlie rubbed my shoulders as I sent the note off with Min. "Boyfriend-girlfriend. That sounds so…fourth-year Common Room."

"Yes, it does," I agreed, pulling away for just a second to open my trunk and take out a couple of things, including some socks, which I tossed into the laundry basket.

"I know we've kind of vaguely discussed it, and while it's only been a few months, well…"

I noticed Charlie feeling at something in his vest pocket, even as I had something I'd gotten from my trunk in my own hand.

"Count of three?" I asked suddenly.

"What?"

"I…I think I know where this is going," I went pretty darn scarlet at that point, "and…assuming you'd be okay with…well…until the war's over…"

"Oh, naturally."

"Well, I…er…well…" I squeezed my eyes shut tight to keep from blushing or tearing up or doing anything else bloody stupid. "Count of three?"

"One."

"Two."

"Three," we finished in unison, revealing the items we'd each been hiding before blurting out, fast as we could, _"willyoumarryme?"_

There was silence. I didn't even see what he had, nor do I think he saw what I had.

But yes, parties the first and second did come to a congenial and mutually-desired agreement to initiate contractual proceedings with an object of permanent affiliation.

And then, biscuits.

Awhile later, we got around to inspecting our items.

I'd finished making him a silver-cased, wrist version of the Quidditch watch he'd admired with the floating dial and chased bezel, reversed for the other wrist from the watch I'd already made for him (knowing he did have a slight preference for wearing his watch on the left,) and with a few little choice extras (especially in the engraving, movement and function,) while he'd been asleep on the train, talking sport with the other guys or assuming my shopping trip with Sarah had gone longer than I'd indicated it would. He'd gone off with Paul Deroulede to one of the vacant workshops in the Guildhaus while I was actually or allegedly shopping with Sarah and painstakingly wax-carved, then lost-cast a silver engagement ring.

It was a filigree solitaire with a little sapphire that somehow perfectly suited me, and as I looked at it closely I realized that he'd managed to carve some very fine details into the filigree. It was so subtle you'd almost never notice it unless you looked at the ring quite closely, and from the side (either down or up one's finger, if one were wearing it, toward the side of the setting,) but close up, there was a lion couchant sinister with a raven vigilant beside on the one side of the channel, a dragon statant guardant dexter with an owl rising together on the other, and on the obverse of the ring the pattern was perfectly, flawlessly reversed. Symbols for him, symbols for me…together, like they were always meant to be that way. If your eyesight was good enough, you could see that lion and raven were as close to cuddling as they could get, and that owl and dragon had a certain…familiar look in their tiny avian and draconic expressions. Just looking at it was like looking at something I'd somehow always had, but never really seen before. It just suited me.

"How did you…?"

"The silver is recycled, actually…refined from a broken Omniscope I found when I was a kid and some other scraps, and…Paul said that you didn't like diamonds."

"Never have," I nodded, still a little disbelieving that this beautiful ring was for someone like me. The ring was…perfect. I'd never so much as seen one that I liked or would've considered wearing before, but this…and it fit my hand as if…well, it _was_ made for me. The fact that, well…my hands _are_ larger than the average woman's, but the design of the ring simply took that into account somehow, and wearing it, well…does it make sense to say that my hand actually looked, well, _pretty_ for the first time ever?

"Is _this_ why you asked all those questions about casting?" I had to ask.

"No, those were because anyone who's seen anything you've made _has_ to ask, in order to believe it's real. Making this was…just a happy benefit. This is _just like_ that Quidditch watch I was looking at, except _so_ much better…with our initials…and the…chasing?" he asked as I did up the band for him. And damned if it didn't suit his arm better than any watch I'd ever seen on a man before…_yeah_…

"Chasing, yes," I replied a little dreamily. "The edge pattern is actually our names in Morse code, if you look _really_ close… And this sapphire is beautiful –you…you didn't spend too much, did you?"

"Uh…some dragons get those in their _kidneys_ sometimes, actually. I had that one and a couple others from Romania and Paul helped me cut the one with the most…clarification? Celerity? I had the expert pick."

"What a clever idea!"

"You don't mind that it's…well…?"

"Mind? I _prefer_ it! Nobody was enslaved or had to do dangerous mining or anything dreadful for it, and removing it probably saved the poor dragon a lot of pain."

"Well, yes, if one's ever had kidney stones or taken a look at the medical diagram of a draconic urethra, it really _does_ have rather more humane implications than a –_i__s this a second__ dial?__"_ He'd found the catch and flipped up the chronometer face to the amorlociometer below. I couldn't help but smile a bit shyly.

"Mm-hmm. Chronometer outside, amorlociometer inside. So it can do two things."

"Am-or-low-key-what now?"

"Amorlociometer," I explained. "It's like a familociometer, but with just two hands and one more function."

"I've never even heard of…this must be so very rare…" He looked at the tiny initial 'J' I'd put on the long hand itself, saw that it was pointing a little half-past 'simul' toward 'una' and that the small hand was pointing to…well, I'll leave _that_ to the reader's imagination. I'd labeled it in the traditional Latin, of course, partly because it works better mechanically and partly because it's the best way to make sure the letters fit.

Amorlociometers are much like the traditional 'family clock' in that the big hand tells you where…well…your love is physically located, and the small hand tells how they are feeling at the moment. It can be a convenient little thing. Bugger to make, really, and the movement and face of that part of this timepiece had taken me nearly two months. I began it in a kind of hopeful, frivolous 'well, supposing he does, and I do, and _yeah…'_ sort of mind-set, which rapidly became more serious. It's probably one of…well…at the time, I think it was one of about forty examples in the known world.

I told him as much and…yeah, that made the both hands twitch on the edge between one mark and another a bit. Kisses can make the difference between 'together' and …erm… _'together'_ on the device in question, though I wouldn't claim it was the most precise example ever.

"This is amazing."

"Naw, _this_ is amazing. I can tell _you_ designed and made this, yourself, and that's not something you do every-bloody-day. The style is just like yours, and it's just so perfectly…well…I can tell exactly what you were thinking when you designed it and I agree with it. That time with the Come-To-Life modeling clay your brothers tested…I knew you could sculpt, but _this detail…"_

"Er…Jessie?"

"Yes?"

"I… cheated a little. See, I'd never worked with jeweler's wax before, and well…"

"You carved the original much larger and then shrunk it down to casting size using a spell and a measurement table, right?"

"…Uh-huh." Charlie actually looked sheepish, even ashamed, and for no good reason at all.

"Oh, sweetheart, I do that _all the time._ Did the better part of your watch that way, otherwise I'd still be working on it. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's considered a standard operating procedure now. To carve this level of detail at casting-size,_ initially_…it just isn't _logical_. I sure as hell couldn't do it."

"Well, I didn't want to take any shortcuts, not for something like this, but after the first bar of jeweler's wax, Paul said it might be better if I did it this way…"

"First _bar?"_ I caught his hand in mine and held it. "You used a _whole bar_ of jeweler's wax tryin' to get this right?" He nodded.

"Wanted it to be perfect and all."

"Oh, Charlie…you've succeeded and _then_ some. I…I've never had anything like this. It's the prettiest, most perfect thing I've ever owned, never liked any possession or thing as much ever…and at the same time, kind of unnecessary."

"The-what?"

"I'd've said yes if you hadn't had anything, you know that."

"So would I, love." He sighed and cuddled up close to me, with the look he gets sometimes when he thinks of a poetic way to explain a thing. "Call it the silver lining of an otherwise rubbish night."

So yes…we had more than one reason to remember that evening, though, for _obvious_ reasons, we considered the post-midnight timing of our particular event to mark the anniversaries on a separate day from the more awful events of the preceding night.

I'd even say that last bit made up for being woken up three hours later by the first of what would be many nightmares our brave nephew suffered those first few months.


End file.
